"A deeply affecting and disturbing novel, both suspenseful and tragic, one of Spencer´s best over a long career. Riveting reading from first page to last" - Booklist Starred Review
"Superior . Refreshingly, Spencer doesn´t make Redhead, who´s capable of snark and petty malice, wholly likable. Readers will look forward to the further adventures of this distinctive lead" - Publishers Weekly Starred Review
Private investigator Jennie Redhead is hired to investigate a murder that´s left the police baffled, in this gripping historical mystery set partly in 1970s Oxford and partly in war-torn 1940s London.
Oxford, 1975. Three years ago, world-renowned anthropologist Grace Stockton was slain in a brutal, unprovoked attack. Despite a large-scale police investigation, the identity of the prime suspect was never uncovered . . . and neither was the location of Grace´s head. But Grace´s daughter, the wealthy academic Julia Pemberton, refuses to accept that the trail has run cold. Determined to find out who killed her mother, she knows just the woman for the job: private investigator Jennie Redhead.
Who was the woman caught on CCTV visiting Grace´s isolated home on the day of the murder? And why did she cut off her victim´s head? Jennie´s search for answers takes her on a dark, disturbing journey into the past, from the ancient tribal customs of Papua New Guinea, to war-torn 1940s London - and to a dark tangle of secrets and scandal that someone is desperate should never be revealed . . .