Sixteen Carved Pieces

MEET DETECTIVE JACK MACINTOSH IN THIS BRILLIANT NEW CRIME SERIES.

Billie-Rose's bloodstained body is found in the kitchen of her ground-floor flat. She's been strangled to death, there's a deep laceration to her upper thigh, and a wooden chess-piece grasped tightly in her hand. Daubed on the wall in Billie-Rose's own blood is a strange symbol: a bishop's mitre. All Detective Jack MacIntosh can think is: He's back. Four years earlier, four young women were also strangled to death in their own homes, the same deep wound to the thigh, the same weird symbol scrawled on the wall. The work of the killer they call the Bishop. Is he back to kill again? Jack and his team are in a race against time to pull the pieces together and uncover the truth before more young women die.

THE DETECTIVE Detective Inspector Jack MacIntosh is a dedicated police officer, the one person you would want to fight your corner. But he has been known to cross the line to get the job done. As a four-year-old boy he discovered his mother's body swinging from a light fitting. Jack and his younger brother were taken into care — Jack did OK, his brother not so much. A bit of a loner, Jack has never married — although plenty of women would like to give it a shot. He lives in a charming mews cottage in central London. No one is quite sure how he can afford it on a detective's salary.