A Velvet Scream

Staffordshire DI Joanna Piercy is on the hunt for a nightclub-going sexual predator in this gritty British mystery that doesn’t settle for easy answers (Publishers Weekly).

On a snowy December morning a young woman is found outside Patches nightclub in Leek. Half dead from the cold and partially clothed she says she has been raped. But as Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy, fresh from a disciplinary action, investigates, she learns that Kayleigh Harrison has made unsubstantiated allegations before against her stepfather. Investigations reveal that six months previously there was a similar rape case in Newcastle under Lyme, the girl dying of natural causes. Is Joanna stepping on a cakewalk, or are the two cases connected? Should she relegate Kayleigh’s story to the back-burner or is there a real case to investigate? What is fact and what fiction? Kayleigh holds the key - but how much can her story be trusted?

Then a third girl disappears from the same nightclub as Kayleigh. DI Piercy’s judgement is called into question just as she is supposed to be planning her own wedding.