The fifth novel in the best-selling Inspector Lynley mystery series

Elena Weaver, in her skimpy dresses and bright jewellery, exuded intelligence and sexuality. A student at St Stephen's College, Cambridge, she lived a life of casual but intense physical and emotional relationships, with scores to settle and targets to achieve. Until someone, lying in wait on the bank of the River Cam, where Elena went running every morning, bludgeoned the young woman to death.

Called into the rarefied world of academia, Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner Barbara Havers find a tangled skein of love, obsession and desire - a maelstrom of emotion that has claimed Elena Weaver's life.

"Ingenious; very well and subtly done" - Sunday Times

"This excellent thriller is fast paced and believable with strong, well-rounded characters and an absorbing background" - Today

"Cunningly deceptive" - Scotsman

"A first-class, page-turning read" - The Times