For fans of Ian Rankin, Stuart MacBride and Peter James, the first novel in a gripping new Edinburgh-based crime series that has already sold more than half a million copies.

The mutilated body of a young girl is discovered in a sealed room. Her remains were carefully arranged in a cruel and macabre ritual that appears to have taken place more than sixty years ago. For Tony McLean, a newly appointed detective inspector in the Edinburgh police, this baffling cold case ought to be a low priority-but he is haunted by the young victim and her grisly death.

Meanwhile, the city is horrified by a series of bloody killings-deaths for which there seems to be no rhyme or reason-and the Edinburgh police are at a loss. But McLean is convinced that these deaths are somehow connected to the ceremonial killing of the girl all those years ago. It is an irrational, almost supernatural theory, and one that will lead McLean closer to a terrifying and ancient evil . . .

Natural Causesis the first book in the Inspector McLean series. It is followed byThe Book of SoulsandThe Hangman's Song.