In a nutshell, after the tumultuous events of the previous
novel, THE KILLING CLUB, Detective Sergeant Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg is living in
a kind of self-imposed exile in the quiet Lake District village of Cragwood
Keld. He’s still a cop, he still investigates crime, now in the company of
spirited sidekick PC Mary-Ellen O’Rourke. But life moves at a slower pace up
here. Heck spends more time rounding up stray sheep than he does feeling the
collars of violent criminals.
And then something terrible happens. One misty autumn night, two female hikers go missing on the
nearby fells.
Not only that, they go missing in frightening and peculiar
circumstances … circumstances that remind Heck discomfortingly of a serial
murder case from many years ago, when a nameless, faceless phantom known as ‘the
Stranger’ preyed on courting couples late at night, leaving a trail of 13 brutalised
corpses.
But the Stranger is dead. Heck is sure about this. He even
contacts Detective Superintendent Gemma Piper down at the Serial Crimes Unit at
Scotland Yard, and she confirms it. The Stranger died over 10 years ago. Someone
else must be responsible for this mysterious double-crime.
Heck can’t help wondering, though ...
After all, they never actually found the Stranger’s body.
Suddenly Cragwood Keld and other high Lakeland villages feel very isolated and remote. And right on cue, the thickest, coldest fog
in living memory descends on the Cumbrian mountains and valleys, bringing life to a standstill. DSU Piper,
sufficiently concerned by Heck’s report that she makes the trip north, is one
of the last people to arrive in the region before everything grinds to an abrupt
halt.
And still this case won’t break. And increasingly, despite
all logic to the contrary, Heck becomes convinced that the Stranger is back.
*
Okay, that’s the nitty-gritty of it. Here, for your further
delectation, is an excerpt from
the novel:
With such fears
in the forefront of his mind, it was probably not the ideal time for him to spot
the writing on the far wall of the boathouse interior. This only happened
slowly, as his eyes adjusted to the deep gloom, but once the piece of crude
graffiti had swum properly into view, he jumped to his feet.
Now that he was fully
out of the water, it was bitterly cold. Ice felt as if it was forming inside
his clothes, but fleetingly Heck was too distracted to notice that. He limped
around the interior to the far pier, so he could examine it up close.
REMEMBER ME?
There was no
question about who’d written it or what it meant, though had Heck not been so
cold already it would still have been numbing to see it in front of his face
like this. In the dimness he was colour-blind, so though he didn’t immediately realise
the sentence had been inscribed in blood, the idea struck him hard when he
dabbed at it with a fingertip, and felt it both slimy and congealed …
Hopefully that will whet a few whistles. In case it didn’t, and completely gratuitously, let’s finish off now with the actual blurb from the back of the book:
Beware the stranger in
the night…
Consigned to a remote
valley in the Lake District, DS Mark ‘Heck’ Heckenburg is getting used to a
quieter life – a far cry from the bloodbath of his former division, the Serial
Crimes Unit. But wherever Heck goes, trouble is never far behind.
Unknown to Heck, ‘the
Stranger’ has returned. Last seen on Dartmoor ten years earlier, this prolific
serial killer has found a new home. As a dense, frozen mist descends on the
Lakes, the Stranger returns to his old ways, starting with two young women lost
high on the hills. Only one girl is ever found – barely alive – but able to
confirm Heck’s worst fears.
As the Stranger lays
siege to the remote community, Heck helplessly watches as the killer plays his
cruel game, letting off his trademark call before viciously picking off his
victims.
And with no way to get
word out of the valley, Heck has no choice but to play ball…
