Counterpart

A computer programmer, a casting director, a call girl. The victims have nothing in common except the manner in which they spent their last night--wrapped in their own bed sheets in a bloody ritual of slow, agonizing death.

For NYPD Captain Thomas Horn, this adversary is unlike any he has met before. Methodical and highly skilled, the killer is always one step ahead, able to enter buildings without detection and leave no trace behind. To stop this deadly rampage, Horn must unlock the secrets of a cunning enemy who is saving his most shocking surprises for last. . .

"John Lutz knows how to make you shiver." --Harlan Coben

"Lutz ranks with such masters as Lawrence Block and Ed McBain." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The body of a young woman is found walled up in the basement of an old Edinburgh mansion. A prominent local figure is brutally murdered. An illegal immigrant cuts his throat in a city centre pub. As violence descends upon the city, Detective Inspector McLean must think the unthinkable. An ancient evil has been set free and only if he can accept that it exists will he be able to stop it.

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Short-Listed for the prestigious Crime Writers Association (CWA) Debut Dagger prize, Natural Causes is the first of an ongoing series featuring Edinburgh-based Detective Inspector Anthony McLean. In a world where demons are not supposed to exist, he is one of the few unlucky enough to be able to sense their presence.

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When Edinburgh police find the killer of a prominent city elder less than twenty-four hours after the crime, they are justifiably pleased. So the murderer has killed himself; that just saves the time and cost of a trial. But a second murder days later bears haunting similarities to the first, even though once more the murderer swiftly confesses and kills himself.

Detective Inspector Anthony McLean is investigating the discovery of a dead girl, walled up in the basement of an old Edinburgh mansion. She has been brutally murdered, her internal organs removed and placed around her in six preserving jars. The evidence suggests this all happened over sixty years ago, an attempt to re-enact an ancient ceremony that by trapping a demon in the dead girl’s body would supposedly confer immortality on the six men who took one of her organs each.

McLean’s grandmother – the woman who raised him after his parents were killed when he was a young boy – dies after months in a coma following a stroke. On top of this he has to investigate a series of unusual, violent suicides and a cat-burglar who targets the homes of the recently dead. But as another prominent Edinburgh businessman is killed, he begins to suspect that there may be a connection between the murders, the suicides and the ritual killing of the girl found in the basement. The same names keep cropping up. He just can’t find a rational explanation as to how that connection works.

As he digs deeper, and as the coincidences stack up, McLean is forced to consider an irrational explanation. Could there really be something evil stalking the city he has sworn to protect? And if so, how on earth can he hope to stop it?

It's so exciting to start over. Deidre Jones should know, since she's doing just that. The first step was getting out of the mental hospital in St. Louis. There were those who tried to stop her. . .so she had to make them understand: Deirdre gets what she wants. And she wants her ex-husband, David, back. He's got a new wife and a little boy. He's forgotten what he and Deirdre once shared. But it will be easy enough to remind him now that she's moved in upstairs. . .

For David, his time with Deirdre was a dark chapter he was glad to see end. Their marriage was based on dangerous, obsessive passion--and when David left, he never looked back. He'd hoped it was the same for Deirdre, but her "neighborly" behavior soon proves him wrong. She's doing her best to manipulate herself back into his life: through his child, through seduction. . .through murder. Because Deirdre will do anything to get what can never be hers--and now David is the only one who can stop her. . .