Welcome to the Ritual Crime Unit. A hard-nosed career officer in a male-dominated world, DCI Claire Pierce of North Yorkshire Police heads Northern England’s underfunded and understaffed Ritual Crime Unit. Dismissed by the traditional police, struggling with an outsized caseload, the RCU is the country’s last line of defence against horrors few can imagine. A failed raid to capture an unlicensed skinbinder becomes a murky off-the-record hunt for a monster. Injured in the line of duty, Pierce returns to contend with ritual murders, puzzling artefact thefts, haunted skulls and a plot with catastrophic implications. With a rebellious second-in-command, an inexperienced team and a boss who only cares about public relations, Pierce has to join the dots before it’s too late...