Ashes to Ashes by
Tami Hoag
pbk out November 99
(Orion)
at £5.99
When her daughter died, her marriage soured and a love affair failed, Kate Conlan walked out on her career in the FBI's profiling unit and settled for the nine to five job of witness/victim advocate in her home town of Minneapolis. But a teenage runaway accidentally witnesses a serial killer's ritual burning of one of his victims and Kate is assigned to support her. Suddenly Kate's past returns to haunt the present.
For the third victim of The Cremator is the daughter of a billionaire businessman who can pull the strings that bring the FBI's star profiler John Quinn back into the heart of Kate's life. Before long, the plot twists and turns till it is no longer clear who is victim, who is witness and who is killer. As heart-stopping fear grips a community, Kate finds herself with the only keys that can unlock these crimes. Ashes to Ashes is firmly rooted in a clear understanding of how cops really behave behind the closed doors of an investigation that is the focus of intense media and political scrutiny. The pages vibrate with tension, as secret lives unravel with appalling consequences. Scary, packed with insights and cleverly constructed, this is a nail-biter of a novel.
(
Val McDermid
- Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill)
