Wire in the Blood

On the edge of a troublesome housing estate a woman sees what she thinks is a young girl being abducted by a man in a car. Alex and her team know their chances of finding the girl alive decrease sharply after the first hour. Only one percent of abduction cases survive beyond a day.

A teenage girl and a young boy are found dead bearing signs of what appear to be ritual killings. Alex is particularly upset by the lack of care shown by their bereaved families. For Tony the dead bodies could be a warning, and he puzzles over what the killer might want to gain and why.

Tony is faced with a series of puzzles when a killer rapes and strangles young female victims in Bradfield but chooses to re-dress and re-identify them as young women he has killed several years previously in Europe.

The murder of an elderly woman proves to be the start of several killings, all showing the same signature but different personality traits in the finer details. The differences seem too profound for only one killer. Moreover, the killings show signs of escalating bravado, and Tony wonders if two killers are in competition.

Tony travels to Texas to testify as an expert psychologist in the trial of Darius Grady, a former soldier accused of killing his wife and children. Tony had previously examined Grady in Bradfield when he was found with an underage girl but attributed his crimes to PTSD.