Once she had been beautiful. Now she was eight days dead, her body slashed with more than fifty cuts.

Janis Parker - young, successful and glamorous - had shared her modern Notting Hill apartment with flatmate Stephanie James. But now Janis is dead - and Stephanie has disappeared.

Heading up the investigation, Detective Stella Mooney soon has her first suspect, in the shape of Mark Ross - Stephanie's boyfriend and Janis's secret lover . . .

But then another body is discovered - slashed fifty times.

Clearly these are no domestic killings. It seems Stella and her team are looking for that most dangerous of creatures: a killer who hunts to feed a terrible appetite.

But the truth is they are up against something even more terrifying. . .