‘So where is she?’

Detective Sergeant Charlie Cooper, recently turned forty and about to quit homicide, has been hunting for the murderer known as the Adultery Killer for ten years. And, as the Adultery Killer last killed twelve months ago, everyone is conscious that a new victim is possible. Cooper and his new partner, Detective Constable Joey Quinn, are allocated a new murder to investigate. They quickly discover that the man murdered, Fraser Grant, is the Adultery Killer. Unfortunately, he had already captured a new victim, and Cooper and Quinn need to find where she is being held before she dies.

‘There’s a brief moment, when you hear bad news, where your subconscious makes the connection before your conscious mind.’

An additional complication: the murderer’s heart has been transplanted into Eva Mattthews, and somehow (you’ll need to read the book to find out how and why) she finds out. She’s distressed: the heart of a killer is not what she envisaged when she had the transplant, and she’s experiencing horrific nightmares.

‘She was pale, so very pale, the woman in the dream.’

Will the Adultery Killer’s final victim be found alive? Is it possible that Eva’s nightmares are related to the kidnapped woman? The husband of the missing woman is desperate: he’s heard of cellular memory, and believes that Eva may have some knowledge (via her transplanted heart) that might help.

I read this novel while recovering from surgery in a Sydney hospital. The best setting, really, to appreciate the various strands of this story. While I enjoyed the novel and ambivalent about the possibility of cellular memory, there were a couple of twists which didn’t quite work for me. Still, I’m a fan of Cooper and Quinn, and as soon as I finished this book, I started the next one.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith