A 20-year-old murder, committed during a climate of intolerance, is at the center of this superb psychological novel. When "Mad Annie" Butts, a black woman afflicted with Tourette's syndrome, dies in the street in front of her London home, police call it an accident. But M. Ranelagh, the young teacher who finds her dying neighbor and tells the story, believes otherwise. And Ranelagh's obsessive quest for justice or, as some believe, revenge leads her to pursue the case for years while living abroad, before personally investigating and confronting her former neighbors.
With private security firms providing bodyguards in war zones, the emergence of a sexual psychopath among mercenaries goes unnoticed. When five women are brutally murdered in Sierra Leone, journalist Connie Burns questions the arrest of three rebel soldiers, but her concerns fall on deaf ears. In the aftermath of a brutal civil war, the rape and murder of women are dismissed, and confessions from child soldiers are coerced. Connie suspects a foreigner, a man claiming to be a former SAS member and now a bodyguard for a Lebanese diamond trader, is responsible. She recalls him from Kinshasa, where he served as a mercenary, and believes he exploits the chaos of war to indulge in sadistic fantasies against women. Two years later, her efforts to expose him in Iraq lead to devastating consequences. Traumatized and forced into hiding in England after enduring three days of conditioning in a Baghdad cellar, Connie seeks to reclaim her former self. In her isolation, she befriends Jess Derbyshire, a reclusive neighbor, and finds strength in their shared struggles. Determined to unmask the serial killer once more, Connie knows she is putting herself in danger, as he will inevitably come looking for her.
