Nicci Gerrard is a journalist and campaigner, who writes bestselling novels with her husband under the name Nicci French. She won the 2016 Orwell prize for her reporting on the care of dementia patients in the UK.
A stalker tackles three women in London. First 23-year old likable schoolteacher Zoe Haratounian, who beats off a thief and gets declared a local heroine by the press, gets scary anonymous letters, but because she runs off from the police station when the desk officer cheerfully calls her 'our poster girl' to a colleague when recognizing her on a press cutting, it takes days before the police can even send over PC Andrew Stadden, a detective in training. She breaks up with her 'not sensitively supportive' hunky boyfriend, gardener Fred, who even gets investigated as a suspect and only has his soccer mates Maurice 'Moz' 'Hack' ...
The brutal murder on her parents leaves daughter and only witness, Finn, injured and traumatised. The police places her at the remote house of trauma psychologist, Dr. Sam Graham. As Finn begins to recover, the cleaner who had first discovered the murdered couple dies suspiciously. When Finn and Sam's boyfriend, Danny, disappears, Sam must put herself and her little daughter at risk to uncover the truth.