Raine and Hume Series

Detective Mary Hume is on the trail of a vicious serial killer. A killer who leaves a baffling code carved into the skin of his victims. The first victim, a young man, lies spreadeagled in his stylish Soho flat. Carved deep into his hairless chest—while he was still alive—are the numbers 1-4-3. The second victim is a vicar—murdered and mutilated in his own church, his body posed kneeling in the front pew. Etched into his torso are more cryptic numbers.

A bloodstained coat. Three missing women. One dead body. Detective Mary Hume reckons she's seen it all. But she's never seen anything like this. It begins with the discovery of a broken body in a lift shaft in an old Victorian warehouse. The postmortem reveals the bloodstains on the dead man's coat belong to three different people. DNA identifies one of them as Julie Cross, whose body was discovered six months earlier, covered in horrifying wounds.