Hero to zero. Cop to corpse. One minute PC Harry Tasker is strolling up Walcot Street, Bath, on foot patrol. The next he is shot through the head. He is picked off, felled, dead.

It's the third killing of an officer in Somerset in a matter of weeks. Ambitious to arrest the Somerset Sniper, the duty inspector seals the crime scene - but is himself attacked and left for dead. Enter Peter Diamond, Bath's CID chief. Throwing himself and his team into the most dangerous assignment of his career, he must outwit a twisted killer with a lust for police blood.

Award-winning international bestseller Peter Lovesey has created his most suspenseful novel yet - a novel that will thrill Diamond's many fans and introduce him to countless new ones.