Parker has kissed New York goodbye and retreated to a wintry Maine where he is both hiding from the past, and trying to earn an honest living as a private detective. He gets drawn into an investigation of a double murder which has echoes of his own recent tragedy. What starts out as a relatively straightforward job – collecting some child support money from an abusive and absent husband – goes downhill fast. The case involves a new double murder and a dreadful mass killing going back decades. As in Every Dead Thing, we have descriptions of the action which alternate between Parker’s voice and a third-person narrative. We also meet a memorably sinister and evil adversary who is even the subject of a nursery rhyme: ‘Caleb Kyle, Caleb Kyle/When you see him run a mile.’