DI Mark Tartaglia investigates the murder of a bestselling novelist in the third novel in Elena Forbes’ bestselling mystery series.

Bestselling novelist Joe Logan walks out into a hot summer’s evening in central London. The next day his body is found dumped in a disused Victorian crypt at the Brompton Cemetery. He has been tied up, shot, and castrated. The killing has the hallmarks of a professional hit. But what had Logan done to deserve such a brutal end?

Detective Mark Tartaglia is convinced that Logan’s personal life holds the key, but unravelling the victim's recent past proves difficult. Then the body of a second man is found in an old boathouse on the Thames — killed in an identical fashion to Logan. A vicious and methodical killer is at work, but what does he want and how does he lure his victims to their death? If Tartaglia can find the link between the two dead men maybe he can find the killer before he strikes again.

Elena Forbes is the author of the Mark Tartaglia mystery series. The first novel in the series, Die With Me, was a finalist for the Crime Writers’ Association John Creasey New Blood Dagger; and the second novel, Our Lady of Pain, was a Globe and Mail Top 10 Crime Book and a National Post pick for Best Crime Fiction. She lives in London, England, with her husband and children.

Elena Forbes' profile page

Forbes continues to build substantial and engaging characters and provide them with off-beat plots that have just a touch of the same sort of macabre detail that made Ruth Rendell irresistible...Forbes really knows how to pace a novel.

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