John Harvey has been described as the master of British crime fiction: From the mean streets of London to the jazz clubs and clip joints of Soho, this is a world of broken families, revenge killings, and prostitution; drugs, guns, and corruption; a world of overstretched police forces and underpaid detectives; men and women who strive nonetheless for a kind of justice; a world in which everything, even friendship, has a price. Featuring characters like Frank Elder, who tried to turn his back on police work and failed; Jack Kiley, ex-cop and now a London-based PI; and the renowned jazz-loving and much-loved Detective Inspector Charlie Resnick, John Harvey’s finely crafted vignettes perfectly encapsulate life in the badlands of contemporary Britain.

From one of Britain’s leading crime writers—Flesh and Blood, Ash and Bone—comes his new book—sure to go straight to the top of the bestseller lists. Will’s first thought when he saw the man’s face: it was like a glove that had been pulled inside out. When police detective Will Grayson and his partner, Helen Walker are called upon to investigate the violent death of Stephen Bryan, a gay Cambridge academic, their first thoughts are of an ill-judged sexual encounter, of rough trade gone wrong. But as their investigation widens, their attention focuses on the biography Bryan was writing about the life and death of fifties film star, Stella Leonard, whose death from drowning, when the car she was driving skidded mysteriously off a lonely Fenland road, uncannily echoed the climax of her most notorious film, Shattered Glass. With Bryan’s journalist sister egging them on, and bringing herself into mortal danger as she conducts her own investigation, Will and Helen gradually peel away the secrets of a family blighted by a lust for wealth and power and its own perverted sexuality.

The stunning new title from the Cartier Diamond Dagger winner and Sunday Times bestselling author, John Harvey. Ruth and Simon Graham’s rare romantic break is shattered by devastating their daughter, Heather, on holiday in Cornwall with a friend’s family, has disappeared. The loss is more than they—or their marriage—can bear. But time does heal, and slowly Ruth builds a new life for herself, a new husband, Andrew, even a second daughter, Beatrice. The chances that history should repeat itself are next-to-impossible—that is until, years later, a desperate phone call launches D.I. Will Grayson and his partner, D.S. Helen Walker, into an investigation which will test their professional and emotional resources to the very limit. Yet as Grayson becomes increasingly obsessed with a recently-released child abuser and Helen is drawn deeper into a destructive love affair with a married colleague, there is a real danger that their most testing investigation yet will slip fatefully through their hands. From the Trade Paperback edition.