A major departure for an acclaimed crime novelist writing under a pseudonym. Detective Inspector Joni Pax, a London homicide detective wounded in a disastrous raid, is transferred to the newly formed Police Force of North East England. Her boss, Detective Chief Inspector Hector `Heck' Rutherford, is recently back at work after a cancer treatment that has shaken his confidence. Based in Corham, Paz and Rutherford investigate a murder at a brothel run by the Albanian mafia. In a series of breathtaking plot twists, the author explores the corruption that underpins the beautiful northern English countryside as well as hinting at a mysterious world beyond the horizon. Carnal Acts explores abuse of many kinds - sexual, psychological, economic - taking the police procedural to places it has never been before. ""[An] exciting, gritty thriller. . . Although lurid and graphic, the book is an enthralling tale, rather than an exploitative one.""--Publishers Weekly, Aug. 4, 2014
