Medics have a way of organising cases

The first one you see is: in my experience. Two becomes case after case. Three is a series. In medicine, as in crime, three is the magic number that makes a syndrome real - or that turns death from a frightening accident, an unfortunate end to a night of heavy drinking, or a ridiculous overdose into a series. And that means the killer, too, has a label.

Three men are dead, three colleagues with a shared past, a past also shared by the one person Kellen Stewart would trust with her life: pathologist Lee Adams. Suspect number one in this fast, hard-edged thriller.

Set in Scotland, the action takes us to the rocks of the west coast and back to the farm in the Campsie Fells that is the location for the first two Kellen Stewart novels.