Book details

Book description

Private eye Kate Brannigan confronts betrayal and cold-blooded greed as she investigates the alien world of medical experimentation and the underbelly of the rock music business.

Kate Brannigan's not just having a bad day, she's having a bad week. Her boyfriend's death notice is in the paper, her plan to catch a team of fraudsters is in disarray and a neo-punk band want her to find out who's trashing their flyposters. And her business partner wants her to buy him out. Fine, but private eyes with principles never have that kind of cash.

Kate can't even cry on her best friend's shoulder, for Alexis has worries of her own. Her girlfriend's pregnant, and when the doctor responsible for the fertility treatment is murdered, Alexis needs Kate like she's never done before.

So what's a girl to do? Delving into the alien world of medical experimentation and the underbelly of the rock-music business, Kate confronts betrayal and cold-blooded greed as she fights to save not only her livelihood, but her life as well… 'One of my favourite authors'
Sara Paretsky

'Kate Brannigan is truly welcome… she is refreshingly funny' Daily Mail

'This is crime writing of the very highest order' Marcel Berlins, The Times

'McDermid packs it all into 237 highly readable pages' Natasha Cooper, TLS

'A powerful sense of place and the usual flak of misanthropic one-liners' Literary Review Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community and then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last three as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. She is now a full-time writer and lives in South Manchester.