DI Colin Anderson is having a bad week. His own conviction of paedophile Skelpie Fairbairn is declared unsafe – putting Fairbairn back on Glasgow’s streets and Anderson is under investigation.

Add to this a gangster torched alive, a teenage boy tortured then dropped off a bridge and the suicide of a cop who worked an unsolved child kidnapping way back in 1996 and Anderson’s got his hands full. Then one night, a young girl is tied to the river bank and left for the tide. Anderson gets there, but she dies in his arms.

Working round the clock his team discover these strange crimes are linked to an elusive criminal mastermind known as The Puppeteer.
But unable to find him, unable to stop the murders, Anderson is forced to follow the only lead he has – Skelpie Fairbairn . . .

But which is worse? The devil you don’t know, or the one you do. . .