For DI Joe Faraday, the funeral of a young colleague, killed in a head-on car crash, is a bitter end to another grim week. And now the seemingly untouchable Detective Paul Winter, master of the scam, has been hurt in a way he could never have imagined. But there’s no time for grief in a CID squad. A disgraced gynecologist is missing, and his caseload of maimed women is a murder-suspect list from hell. It’s an impossible workload, and if that wasn’t enough, the politicians and the suits are about to make Faraday’s life even harder.