When Peter May wrote this novel in 2005 about London in the grip of a pandemic, publishers shortsightedly rejected it as being too wildly improbable a scenario. During a lengthy lockdown, the city is falling apart, and so is detective inspector Jack MacNeil's life, with his marriage over and his own family ravaged by the virus. Counting the hours on his final day with the police, MacNeil is sent to investigate the murder of a child. But sinister forces are tracking his movements, prepared to strike again to hide the truth about the skeleton found at a construction site, and MacNeil wonders which will stop him first—the virus or the killer? Shortlisted again in 2021 for the CWA's Dagger in the Library career award, May remains one of our favorite thriller writers.