When a young woman is found stabbed in a York park, DI Geraldine Steel faces a case with no obvious motive and frustratingly few leads. The charismatic victim, Jessica Bulmar, was not everything her friends believed her to be. Her older husband, Jon, is ill with Parkinson's and deeply devoted. Her husband's business partner, Robert, accompanied the couple on every holiday. And Amy is hiding something she can barely bring herself to acknowledge.

When a second woman is murdered in almost identical circumstances the investigation takes a sinister turn. Geraldine begins to suspect that the two killings are linked not by the victims but by the killer's motive: an consuming obsession that has curdled into something lethal. Geraldine edges closer to the truth and the danger closes in.

The enemy is nearer than she knows.