El último verdugo

A string of brutal murders confounds the Barcelona police: each corpse bears a strange mark on the nape of the neck, killed with a garrote vil, the archaic execution device once used by real Spanish executioners. Beside every body, the killer leaves the same note: "Someone has to do it."

Dr. Lena Mayoral, a prestigious but personally troubled forensic criminologist, is brought in to get inside the killer's mind. As the case escalates, she realizes the murderer has chosen Barcelona's most symbolic locations deliberately — the city itself is part of his message — and that he may be playing a very personal game with her.

The first book in Toni Hill's Trilogía del verdugo, El último verdugo is a dark, tense psychological thriller about the masks a psychopath wears and the thin line between hunting a killer and being hunted by one.