Return To Darkness

Now a powerful and mysterious visitor who calls herself a “concerned citizen” offers Elroy his freedom if he’ll do another job, and sweetens the deal with proof that his wife might still be alive. All Elroy has to do is hack into one of the most complicated and deadliest security grids in the world—clear and simple instructions for the best in the business. Or so he thinks.

When fiery Bridget Cummings advertised for a lodger, she did not expect a policeman to apply for the room. She wasn't fond of the coppers, believing them to be traitors to the poor of Whitechapel, but her younger brother and sister moved P.C.Fred Billings in the moment Bridget's back was turned, and she seemed to have little say in the matter. Still, she had to admit that she was glad of his company in the walk back from her late-night washing up job, particularly when a young girl was found in a nearby street with her throat cut.

The discovery of the body of Maureen Flanagan, who was, the neighbours believed, a respectable woman, naturally stirred memories of Jack the Ripper. His horrific crimes had shocked the neighbourhood only twelve years before., but Chief Inspector Dobbs of the City of London Police believed, like most other police officers, that the Ripper was dead. But when a second body was discovered, and Bridget noticed a strange man following her, the neighbourhood was alert to the possibility that the terror had returned...

Smashed skull, snapped ribs, and a cloying smell of carrion. Leave the body for the hyenas to devour—no body, no case.

But Kalahari game rangers stumble on the human corpse mid-meal. The murder wasn't perfect after all. Enter Detective David "Kubu" Bengu of the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department, an investigator whose personality and physique match his moniker, the Setswana word for hippopotamus—which is a seemingly docile beast, but one of the deadliest, and most persistent, on the continent.

Beneath a mountain of lies and superstitions, Kubu uncovers a chain of crimes leading to the most powerful figures in the country—cold-bloodedly efficient and frighteningly influential enemies who can make anyone who gets in their way disappear.