Portrait in Death

A reporter's tip sends Lieutenant Eve Dallas to a dumpster on Delancey Street, where she finds the body of a young woman. Hours earlier, a news station received a set of professional portraits of the same woman. They look like the photos any hopeful model would commission to start a career.

The woman was not a model, and the pictures were taken after she was murdered. Dallas recognises the work of a killer who plans with care and treats his crimes as art. He watches each victim closely and records her movements before he strikes.

His aim is to possess the innocence of beautiful young women and fix their youth and vitality in a single shot. In his mind, killing them gives them eternal youth. Dallas has to read his method and his obsession to get ahead of him before he chooses the next woman.

This is the 17th book in the In Death series, a police procedural set in the future with a serial killer at its centre. The investigation runs alongside a personal strain: Dallas usually leans on her husband for help with a case, but he has just learned a devastating truth about his past.