When a chamber of horrors is revealed during building work at Norfolk’s County Hall, dozens of bones arranged in an arcane pattern inside a long-forgotten cellar, everybody expects the worst—until a forensic team discovers that the human remains are decades old.

After the horror of his kidnapping at the hands of Hollenbeck, DCI Kett isn’t in a hurry to return to work. But Superintendent Clare thinks these historic crimes are the perfect way to ease him back into the job.

The case isn’t as cold as it looks, though. Soon Kett finds himself on the trail of a ruthless and obsessive killer, and caught in the crosshairs of one of the most powerful families in the city.

Occult rituals, cold-hearted revenge and bloody retribution—it falls once again to the Extreme Crime Task Force to solve a case that cuts right to the bone.

Alex Smith books, the DCI Robert Kett and DI Harrison Baird thrillers, have monsters in them too, although these monsters are very human, and all the more terrifying for it. In between, he has published fourteen novels for children and teenagers under his full name, Alexander Gordon Smith—including the number one bestselling series Escape From Furnace. He lives in Norwich with his wife and three young daughters.

Tim Bruce is seasoned narrator having narrated over 200 audiobooks. This includes both fiction and non-fiction and most notably Lynda La Plante’s Framed and Albert Roux’s My Life in Food. When he is not narrating he is acting and has been in many TV soaps and in the West End production of Blood Brothers.???????

© 2026 Alex Smith (P) 2026 DK Audio