Ritual - Softcover

Just after lunch on a Tuesday in April, nine feet under water, police diver Flea Marley closes her gloved fingers around a human hand. The fact that there's no body attached is disturbing enough. Yet more disturbing is the discovery, a day later, of the matching hand. Both have been recently amputated, and the indications are that the victim was still alive when they were removed. Newly seconded to the Major Crime Investigation Unit in Bristol, DI Jack Caffery is attempting to leave behind his failed personal life in London. Still haunted by the disappearance of his brother, he is looking for a man recently released from a high- security prison, a man who sleeps rough and walks the country roads as he relives the memories of a terrifying crime. Caffery and Flea soon establish that the hands belong to a boy who has recently disappeared. Their search for him, and for his abductor, leads them into the darkest recesses of Bristol s underworld, where drug addiction is rife, where street-kids sell themselves for a hit, and where an ancient evil lurks; an evil that feeds off the blood - and flesh - of others ... RITUAL is the opening novel in Mo Hayder s Walking Man series

Mo Hayder left school at fifteen and has worked as a barmaid, security guard, filmmaker, and Tokyo nightclub hostess. This is her fourth novel.