A chilling, relentlessly paced thriller of an evil that has crossed generations, and only Tom Thorne can stop it. From the author Lee Child has called "the new wave leader" of crime fiction.

Night and day, country music lover Detective Tom Thorne is on call to solve the most difficult crimes. It's a schedule that has pushed his fragile relationship with his girlfriend to the breaking point. In an attempt to avoid becoming like the Hank Williams song, "A Stranger in the Night," Thorne eagerly takes charge of what seems like, for once, an ordinary domestic murder. But when a mysterious sliver of bloodstained X-ray that was found clutched in the victim's fist is replicated at other crime scenes around the city, it becomes clear that the past is coming back to haunt the city of London.

Detective Thorne realizes that a killer is targeting the children of victims of an infamous serial killer from years before. Before everyone on the list is killed, Thorne must stop the most twisted killer he has ever hunted.