It is only ten days since Douglas Remfry was released from prison, having served seven years of a twelve-year sentence for rape, and now he is dead: naked on a bare mattress in the grubbiest of north London hotel rooms, his head hooded and his hands tied tight with a brown leather belt.

Someone knew he was coming out. Someone wanted to mete out a punishment of his own.

And when a second sex offender is discovered dead - different hotel, same modus operandi - D.I. Tom Thorne knows he has a vicious, calculating vigilante on his hands.

Thorne works best when his passions are up, when his anger flares him into action. Here though, his sympathy for the dead is zero. It is only as the investigation continues that he finally discovers a victim worth fighting for, a victim whose identity becomes crucial in cracking this most twisted of cases ...