Dark Objects — Simon Toyne

Forensics expert Laughton Rees hunts an unusually clever killer who appears to be staging murder scenes just for her in this twisty new psychological thriller by the bestselling author of the Sanctus trilogy.

How do you catch a killer if the victim doesn't exist?

A glamorous woman is murdered in her ultra-luxurious London mansion and her husband goes missing. But according to public records, neither of them exists.

The only leads police have are several objects arranged around the woman's body, including a set of keys and a book called How to Process a Murder by Laughton Rees -- a book that appears to have helped the killer arrange the crime scene.

Laughton Rees is an academic who doesn't usually work live cases because, as a teen, she witnessed the brutal murder of her mother and is still dealing with that trauma years later. But when her book is found she is drawn unwillingly into this new high-profile investigation and the media circus that springs up around it. As the dark objects found beside the body lead her closer to the victim's identity, a dangerous threat to Laughton and her daughter emerges, as well as painful memories of her past and the man she blames for her mother's death: John Rees, Laughton's father, the current Metropolitan Chief Commissioner and a man she has not spoken to in twenty years.

Laughton's family was destroyed once, and she built herself a new one. Now, she has to catch a killer before this one is destroyed too.