In a neighbourhood that could be yours, something shocking is about to be discovered.
Maggie has moved to Leeds to
escape her ex-
husband in what was an abusive relationship. She becomes friends with the lady across the road, feeling she has found a kindred spirit when she learns Lucy too is a victim of domestic abuse. In the early hours one morning she hears an arguement from her neighbours across the road and to protect her friend calls the police.
Thinking this just another call out to a normal domestic violence situation, the police are totally unprepared for what they encounter. Lucy lies severly battered in the hall. After seeing to her comfort and calling an ambulance, the police seek out the husband, sure that he is still in the house. Searching the cellar they find his lair behind a door with a lewd picture of a woman. Here it all loses it's normality, the scene that confronts the police is shocking. Before them lies a young girl, tied spread eagled on a soiled mattress, strangled. The room is lit by candles and the walls lined with mirrors, so the horrific scene goes on forever. As the police struggle with the initial shock they are assailed by the husband. What follows is a dramatic fight for life, one which a policeman will lose instantly, and the assailant will later lose in hospital.
The SOCO team are called in and this ordinary suburban house soon releases its secrets to become a house of horrors. In all six bodies are eventually recovered from the scene.
The main police character - Banks, is not your usual 2 dimentional novel detective. In piecing together the
events of the last moments of these girls lives, the auther exposes some of Banks personal experiences, past loss and current interests. Though not relevant to the case, nor are the rememberances stirred up by the case events, they are well included to add depth to Banks and give the reader a break from the horrors of the story, the victims and of the brutalities of the main characters that they face now and have faced in their pasts.
The main flow of the story, is Lucy really as innocent as she seems? Some dark alleys are explored from Lucy's past to see if she is involved in any way, other cases are explored and explained.
Not your usual happy ending, each character goes away from the book with some scar of these events and tainted by the case.
A read that keeps you interested, even if a bit predictable at times.