John's third British police procedural featuring Sergeant Trevor Joseph and the detectives on the Serious Crimes Squad (after Six Foot Under) sets the group on a gritty, compelling case predicated on an ultramodern medical technique. A pair of red shoes worn by a vagrant in an amateur documentary film suggests that he was the victim who doused with gasoline and set afire near a homeless shelter. Gradually, members of the Squad determine that the distinctively shod man in the film, called Tony, is not the victim. They refocus attention on the now missing "Tony," whose past is uncovered to reveal murder, an escape from prison, an association with one of the Squad and an unsanctioned medical procedure. All of this, including finding out who performed the illegal surgery on "Tony" and a new case of arson in which teenage indigents are killed, proves an uphill battle for the Squad, especially for Joseph and his former partner, Peter Collins, who are also beset by domestic problems. John expertly weaves together information about the medical, psychological and procedural strands of this taut story of revenge and retribution.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Jubilee Street – the haunt of addicts and vagrants is a part of town to avoid at all costs, especially when it becomes the stalking ground of a brutal and ruthless murderer. A drunken down and out is the first casualty, mutilated and burned alive but his grisly death raises even more problems for the investigating officers, Sergeants Trevor Joseph and Peter Collins. They discover that their victim died two years earlier. So who is the dead man? And what was the motive for the bizarre crime? While they seek a killer in the dark urban underworld, the tally of corpses grows and the only certainty is that they can trust no man's face as his own.