The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean, #2)

At the turn of the Millennium, Detective Constable Anthony McLean’s fiancé was abducted, raped and murdered by antiquarian book dealer Donald Anderson, the notorious Christmas Killer. Every winter since has been a time of nightmares. So when in the space of a few short weeks Anderson is killed in prison, McLean’s tenement building is burned down, and a young woman’s body is found murdered using Anderson’s MO, it’s hardly surprising that McLean starts to go off the rails. ------ For ten years, leading up to the turn of the millennium, the Christmas Killer worked his evil on the city of Edinburgh. Every year, in the run-up to the festivities, a young woman would go missing. Then, in the week between Christmas and Hogmanay, her body would be found, throat cut, stripped naked, washed clean and laid out in running water. Ten years, ten women. And the last of these was Kirsty Summers, fiancé to Detective Constable Anthony McLean. No one is quite sure how he found Donald Anderson, least of all McLean himself. But something took him to the old man's antiquarian bookshop, and something else made the Christmas Killer let down his guard. In a cellar under the shop they found his torture chamber. Anderson went to prison and the murders - or at least those murders - finally stopped. Twelve years on, Anderson is killed by a fellow inmate. Christmas is coming, and the body of a young woman is found, naked, washed, laid out in running water, her throat cut. She has been missing for a week. Detective Inspector McLean had finally put his past behind him. Now it seems it wasn't ready to let him go.