Pagans believe “Do what thou wilt”. Unfortunately, so does a serial killer.
Melancholic ex-cop John Bottrell is looking forward to a peaceful retirement until a dead man’s body is fished out of the sea; the tongue has been cut out and a pentagram carved into the groin.
It’s a ritual killing, which is more in Bottrell’s line than the local police, so he’s co-opted back to solve the case.
Then there’s another murder; this time a 13 year old girl – also with the mark of the pentagram.
In a fast-paced narrative the reader is drawn into a web of modern paganism, drugs and evil where nobody is quite who they seem to be, but everyone has a secret to hide – and a motive for murder.
Kelvin I. Jones brilliantly recreates the essential eeriness of Eastern England during a suffocating heat wave and melds the disciplines of crime writing and horror, leading us trancelike into a world of magic, mystery and murder.
