The third consecutive No.1 bestselling crime novel from the author of the DI Logan McRae series and Birthdays for the Dead.

Sticks and stones may break your bones...

The first body is chained to a stake: strangled, and stabbed, with a burning tyre around its neck. But is this a gangland execution or something much darker?

Someone's leaving little knots of bones on DI Logan McRae's doorstep, but he's got bigger concerns. Rival drug gangs are fighting over product and territory; two teenage lovers are missing; someone's crippling Asian immigrants; and Logan's been lumbered with an ambitious new Detective Sergeant and gained the unwelcome attention of the local crime boss.

When another body turns up, the similarities between these murders and the plot of a bestselling novel seem like more than just a coincidence. And perhaps those little knots of bones are more important than they look...