Two bodies. One calling card. A killer just getting started.

London. Two weeks before Christmas. A respected Muslim trustee leaves a back-room card school and is murdered outside his own mosque.

His throat cut by a blade so sharp it leaves a surgeon's line. In his pocket: a single ace of spades.

Detective Inspector Pippa Nash of the Met’s Homicide and Serious Crime Command takes the call before dawn. Sharp, principled, and used to fighting her corner in a command run by old-school men, she knows the moment she sees the body that the case is political dynamite.

Her Detective Sergeant, Nick Moretti, is harder to read — pipe-smoking, houseboat-living, the kind of detective who forgets to charge his phone but never misses a tell in an interview room.

They’re a tight team who trained together. Nash handpicked Moretti to move to Homicide with her, knowing she’d value his judgement on her team. They're going to need every bit of that history on this case.

Days later, a trainee priest is butchered outside an escort's flat in Crouch End. Same MO. Same calling card. Both men had broken a rule of their faith — and the killer sees himself as a cleanser of sinners.

He isn't finished.

Then the phone calls start. The killer wants Moretti to listen. He has his private number. He knows his routine. He knows Nash.

As Christmas closes in and the body count climbs, the killer's voice grows darker — and one chilling truth becomes impossible to ignore.

He hasn't just been watching the investigation.

He's already inside it.

The blistering first case for London detectives Nash and Moretti. Perfect for fans of Mark Billingham, MJ Arlidge and Cara Hunter.

MEET THE DETECTIVES:
Ten years ago, Nash and Moretti were DCs together on the Borough crime squad. When she made DI and moved to Homicide, she handpicked him for her team. He nearly said no — he was worried that becoming his boss would cost her the friendship. She told him she needed his judgement more than a beer with a mate. Neither of them has had cause to regret the trade.

DI Pippa Nash is the kind of senior investigating officer her bosses would quietly prefer to manage out — if she weren't so good at her job. Career-driven, with covert work behind her, she runs her team by three rules: assume nothing, believe no one, challenge everything. Off-duty she rides motorbikes through Scotland, listens to Motörhead, and lives alone in a top-floor flat with no television. Uncompromising on the job, fiercely loyal to her team — and ten years into a partnership with Moretti.

DS Nick Moretti keeps his world stripped back. He lives alone on a barge in a London marina, smokes a pipe when he wants to think, and forgets to charge his phone more often than is helpful. He's currently sharing his boat with an artist neighbour whose heating has packed in — exactly the kind of complication his life seems to attract. On the job he's instinctive, well-liked, and not above bending procedure when it suits him. Off it, he'd rather be on a beach in Corfu.

Please note, this was previously published as Latent Damage.

READERS CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF MURDER CALLING:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ‘Wow! This kept me gripped and turning the pages . . . the writer knows the world he's writing about