Elizabeth George's first novel, A Great Deliverance, was honoured with the Anthony and Agatha Best First Novel awards in America and received the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere in France. The critically acclaimed Payment in Blood followed, and Well-Schooled in Murder, which was awarded the prestigious German prize fbr international mystery fiction, the MIMI, in 1990.A Suitable Vengeance, For the Sake of Elena, Missing Joseph, Playing for the Ashes, In the Presence of the Enemy and, most recently, Deception on his Mind were also highly acclaimed.

Two bodies - the corpses of a young man and woman - are discovered in the middle of a pre-historic stone circle in Derbyshire. Each met death in a different fashion. Each died violently.

The grisly crime promises to be one of the toughest assignments of Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley's career. For the dead girl was the daughter of a former officer in an elite undercover unit, a man Lynley once regarded as a mentor. Now, as Lynley wrestles with the intricacies of the case in the Peak District, Barbara Havers, determined to redeem herself after her recent demotion, crisscrosses London seeking information on the second victim.

As the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place, Lynley and Havers are once again forced to confront the icy realisation that human relationships are often murderous.., and that the blood that binds can also kill.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Acknowledgments