The eighth book in the internationally bestselling series, with over a million copies sold!

Extreme crime needs extreme measures.

DCI Kett is back, heading Norfolk Constabulary’s brand-new Extreme Crime Task Force.

And it’s just in time.

The body of a woman bound in thorns has been discovered in Norwich’s historic Cow Tower. In her mouth is a severed finger wrapped in a scrap of red cloth, and the first few lines of a fairy tale.

“Once upon a time, a young maiden waited to be saved from a hideous monster.”

The finger belongs to another missing woman, and if Kett, Porter and Savage want to find her alive they must follow a chain of blood-drenched riddles, each victim leading to the next and each crime more horrific than the last.

Because this killer is telling a story, and he’ll do anything to stop it having a happy ending.

Join DCI Kett, DI Porter and DC Savage on their most dangerous and disturbing case yet, in the internationally bestselling series that Thrilling Fiction calls “the most addictive and action-packed crime saga you’ll ever read.”

Binge the series now.

Alex Smith wrote his first book when he was six. It wasn’t particularly good, but it did have some supernatural monsters in it. His latest books, the DCI Robert Kett thrillers, have monsters in them too, although these monsters are very human, and all the more terrifying for it. In between, he has published fourteen novels for children and teenagers under his full name, Alexander Gordon Smith—including the number one bestselling series Escape From Furnace, which is loved by millions of peopl worldwide and which is soon to become a motion picture. He lives in Norwich with his wife and three young daughters.