DI Stewart Gardener is adding the final touches to his motorbike restoration project when a murder case drops a spanner in the works. A man has stumbled upon his publisher’s dead body hanging from a rope in Leeds’s Kirkstall Abbey. Running his business on a shoestring, Max Knowles had racked up debts, though none appeared serious enough to drive him to commit suicide. DI Gardener’s Major Incident Team quickly establish the man was murdered. Yet finding the killer will prove harder. As the mental health of a key witness unravels, an enigmatic hypnotist might hold the key to solving the case. But unless DI Gardener can join up the dots, a cunning stone-faced murderer will slip through his grasp.