‘One of the most exciting writers to have emerged in Britain for years’ IAN RANKIN The last time Maureen O’Donnell saw Ann Harris, she was in the Glasgow Women’s Shelter smelling of a long binge on cheap drink. A month later, Ann’s mutilated body, stitched into a mattress, is washed up on the banks of the Thames. No one, except for Maureen and her best mate Leslie, seems to care about what has happened to her, and Maureen is the only person who thinks Ann’s husband is innocent. But solving Ann’s murder comes as light relief for Maureen. Her father is back in Glasgow, living in an area overlooking her bedroom window; Leslie is sloping about like a nervous spy; and then there’s Angus – Maureen’s old therapist – who’s twice as bright as she is, and is making her play a dangerous game with the police. In the long tradition of Scots in trouble, Maureen runs away to London. Looking for answers to the mystery surrounding Ann’s death, she becomes embroiled in a seedy world of deceit and violence. Alone and vulnerable in a strange city, Maureen starts to piece together Ann’s final days. But time is not on her side, and Maureen needs twelve more hours, just twelve, to put things right and she doesn’t care what it costs...