DI Jake Sawyer is suffering. After a bruising confrontation with a cruel killer, he has isolated himself in a remote cottage in the bleak and beautiful northern Peak District.

Facing an uncertain future, he resumes his illicit investigation into his mother’s murder, and reluctantly enters therapy to explore his apparent lack of primal fear response.

When an ex-TV personality is found murdered, from a single stab wound to the heart, Sawyer suspects a ritualistic element. But then a second victim is found, and he forms a terrifying theory about the killer’s twisted logic.

As Sawyer teeters on the edge of breakdown, he must protect the killer’s targets as he closes in on the truth behind the attack on his mother: a truth that will put his reputation - and freedom - at risk.