Drinking, jogging and womanising assist DI Sanderson in coping with his caseload in Homicide. Several young women are found murdered and mutilated in the bushy grounds of Phillips University. Is a serial killer at work? Jill Ashworth, a lecturer, is tentative and wary around men. Her fears escalate as violence rips through her academic haven. Barbara Harper is torn from her privileged world when her university-student daughter's best friend is the first victim. Dread at losing Madeline overrides her other problems. Lives, entwined in a murder investigation, rarely cut free.