When a 17-year-old Moldovan boy is found dead on Hampstead Heath, the case falls to DCI Karen Shields and her overstretched Homicide & Serious Crime Unit. Karen knows she needs a result. What she doesn't know is that her new case is tied inextricably to a much larger web of gang warfare and organized crime which infiltrates almost every aspect of London society. Several hundred miles away in Cornwall, DI Trevor Cordon is stirred from his day-to-day duties by another tragic London fatality. Travelling to the capital, determined to establish the cause of death and trace the deceased's daughter -- an old acquaintance from Newlyn -- Cordon becomes entangled in a complicated situation of his own. A situation much closer to Karen's case than either of them will ever know. Brilliantly plotted and filled with rich, subtle characters, John Harvey's latest novel reveals him once again as a masterful writer with his finger firmly on the pulse of twenty-first century crime.