When a dismembered body is discovered in the vault of a Mayfair silver shop near Freemasons' Hall, the police identify the remains as those of a convicted armed robber. Decima Mullins disagrees: she believes the body belongs to her missing boyfriend and hires Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott to prove it.
The investigation draws Strike and Robin into the overlapping worlds of Mayfair's silver antiques trade and the secretive institution of Freemasonry, whose Covent Garden headquarters provides both the geographical and symbolic centre of the case. As with the best Cormoran Strike novels, the investigation involves a client whose account of events is not entirely straightforward and a cast of suspects whose connections to the victim expand in unexpected directions.
The eighth Cormoran Strike novel was published on 2 September 2025 and debuted simultaneously at number one on bestseller lists in both the United Kingdom and the United States — continuing the series' record of bestselling performance while advancing the ongoing personal storylines that have developed across the eight books. It is the seventh published novel in a planned ten-book series, following The Running Grave (2023).