Hamburg State Prosecutor Chastity Riley and her colleagues investigate the murders of men with a history of abuse towards women … as a startling, horrifying series of revelations emerge. Germany’s Queen of Krimi returns with the darkly funny, mesmerizingly dark next instalment in an addictive series…
 
‘Simone Buchholz is my favourite German crime writer' Mark Sanderson, The Times
 
‘Such a revelation’ Laura Lippman
 
‘German-American Chastity Riley [is] snooty, churlish, sarcastic, sometimes drunk and always inappropriate. The whole series breaks the boundaries of typical crime novels’ Romy Hausmann
 
‘A distinctive voice, and a flawed but compelling protagonist. This is vintage Buchholz – style and sass and St Pauli’ Will Carver
 
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When neatly packed male body parts wash up by the River Elbe, Hamburg State Prosecutor Chastity Riley and her colleagues begin a perplexing investigation.

As the murdered men are identified, it becomes clear that they all had a history of abuse towards women, leading Riley to wonder if it would actually be in society’s best interests to catch the killers.

But when her best friend Carla is attacked, and the police show little interest in tracking down the offenders, Chastity takes matters into her own hands. As a link between the two cases emerges, horrifying revelations threaten Chastity’s own moral compass, and put everything at risk…

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Praise for the Chastity Riley series
 
***WINNER of the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger***
***WINNER of the German Crime Book of the Year Award***
 
'Ice-cool, effortlessly classy prose' Observer
 
'Reading Buchholz is like walking on firecrackers' Graeme Macrae Burnet
 
'Gruesome and assured, Buchholz's work remains as persuasive as ever' Financial Times
 
'Simone Buchholz writes with real authority and a pungent, noir-ish sense of time and space … a palpable hit' Independent
 
'With brief, pacy chapters and fizzling dialogue, this almost feels like American procedural noir and not a translation' Maxim Jakubowski
 
'There is a fantastic pace to the story … a unique voice that delivers a stylish story' NB Magazine
 
'A smart and witty book that shines a probing spotlight on society' CultureFly
 
'A must-read, stylish and highly original take on the detective novel' Judith O'Reilly
 
'A real blast of adrenaline' Big Issue
 
‘Elmore Leonard fans will be enthralled' Publishers Weekly
 
'Buchholz doles out delicious black humour [and] ramps up the intrigue and tension' Foreword Reviews
 
'Fierce enough to stab the heart' Spectator
 
'A modern classic' CrimeTime
 
'A stylish, whip-smart thriller' Herald Scotland