Birthdays For The Dead

Synopsis

The terrifying new crime novel from the bestselling author of Shatter the Bones and Dark Blood Children go missing all the time. Parents sit at home, jumping every time the telephone rings. Wanting any news, good or bad, just so they can know what happened. But sometimes, it's better not to know. The tabloids call him the Birthday Boy. He snatches girls just before their thirteenth birthdays. No ransom demand. No evidence. No signs of foul play. One year later the family get a homemade card in the post “ 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!' scrawled in blood-red ink above a Polaroid photograph of the missing girl; gagged, tied to a chair, tears streaming down her face. A new card arrives every year, each one documenting their daughter's last birthday as she's slowly tortured to death. Detective Constable Ash Henderson isn't exactly the poster boy for community policing “ divorced, demoted, under investigation for corruption, and struggling to pay off gambling debts to Oldcastle's gangland boss “ so when the head of CID seconds him to the Birthday Boy investigation it's a chance for him to lie low for a while. But things are spiraling out of control: the Birthday Boy knows Ash is hunting him, more girls are going missing, and Ash's daughter is about to turn thirteen There will be no second chances.