The first in a new series featuring Charlie Woodend's protege, DCI Monika Paniatowski - It will be no easy task to fill DCI Charlie Woodend's shoes, the newly-promoted Monika Paniatowski tells herself, but, given a little time, she thinks she can grow into them. Yet, with the discovery of a severed hand, time is the one thing she does not have. When her colleagues prove untrustworthy, the urge to call Woodend for help becomes almost irresistible ....

DCI Monika Paniatowski has seen dozens of murder victims in her time but nothing could have prepared her for the corpse which was discovered in the woods early one morning. He had been carefully posed naked on his hands and knees. Was the killer sending a message? DCI Paniatowski must find out fast.

Before she can even begin to track down the killer of the old woman dumped on the lonely canalside, Monika Paniatowski needs to find out who she is - and no one seems to know. It's not until there is a second, even more brutal, murder that Paniatowski realises she will have to call on the help of her old mentor, ex-DCI Charlie Woodend.