The body of a teenager dredged from the seabed off the coast of Sussex is found to be missing its vital organs. Soon two more young bodies are found.
Caitlin Beckett, a fifteen-year-old in Brighton, will die if she does not receive an urgent liver transplant. When the health system threatens to let her down, Lynn, her mother, turns in panic to the internet and discovers a broker who can provide her with a black-market organ - but at a price.
As Superintendent Roy Grace investigates the recovered bodies, he unearths the trail of a gang of child traffickers operating from Eastern Europe. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in ... more

Ruth Rendell takes us back in time, not only to resolve a series of crimes, but to show Wexford as a young man, meeting Dora, his future wife, and developing into the unique, instinctive yet methodical detective that he becomes.


First published 2009.