The fourth instalment in the Anderson and Costello series turns personal for Anderson as he fights to clear his name while investigating a series of brutal crimes targeting child victims

Better the devil you know . or the one you don't?

For DI Colin Anderson, there's no such simple thing as right and wrong.

As his seemingly clear-cut conviction of paedophile Skelpie Fairbairn is declared unsafe, Anderson finds himself under investigation. Pressure on the DI mounts as an elusive criminal mastermind known as the Puppeteer seems to be the link in a series of alarming events: a gangster torched alive; a teenage boy tortured then dropped off a bridge; and the suicide of a cop working on a decades-old, unsolved child kidnapping.

When a young girl dies in Anderson's arms after being left to drown, he is at his wits' end. With Fairbairn as his only lead, is he prepared to dance with the devil to solve her murder?