The northern English borderlands play host to crime noir at its darkest and most terrifying.

DI Joni Pax, a London homicide detective, wounded in a disastrous raid, has been transferred to the newly formed Police Force of North East England. Her boss, DCI Hector 'Heck' Rutherford, is recently back at work after cancer treatment. Between them they are responsible for major crime in rural Northumberland and County Durham. Joni, the daughter of a black American and a white hippy, is a loner struggling to regain her self-confidence. Heck is happily married, but illness has left him fearful.

Based in Corham, a town with Roman, medieval and industrial heritage, Pax and Rutherford investigate a murder at a brothel run by the Albanian mafia. In a series of breathtaking plot twists, we are drawn into 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 and economic – taking the police procedural to places it has never been before.

Dark, unremitting and terrifyingly relevant, Carnal Acts is a book you may hesitate to pick up and put down.

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