Ritual

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Just after lunch on a Tuesday in April, nine feet under water, police diver Flea Marley closes her gloved fingers around a human hand. The fact that there's no body attached is disturbing enough. Yet more disturbing is the discovery, a day later, of the matching hand. Both have been recently amputated, and the indications are that the victim was still alive when they were removed.

DI Jack Caffery has been newly seconded to the Major Crime Investigation Unit in Bristol. He and Flea soon establish that the hands belong to a boy who has recently disappeared.

Their search for him - and for his abductor - lead them into the darkest recesses of Bristol's underworld, where drug addiction is rife, where street-kids sell themselves for a hit, and where an ancient evil lurks; an evil that feeds off the blood - and flesh - of others ...

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Disturbing and bloody African rituals seem to be increasingly part of Bristol's modern criminal landscape in Hayder's series third book (after Birdman and The Treatment). Maverick DI Jack Caffery and police diver Flea Marley discover a pair of recently amputated hands, buried in what seems to be a ritualistic manner-their introduction to this sinister trend. As they investigate, Flea struggles to find new ways of dealing with the deaths of her parents in a diving accident the year before. Both Jack and Flea are tough and appealing characters, both of whom are balancing their policing skills with their personal demons. Reader Andrew Wincott brings skill and verve to a variety of British dialects. Verdict Recommended.-Kristen L. Smith, Loras Coll. Lib., Dubuque, IA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.