'The Butcher of Belle Vue' has struck again. Like the first two victims, the third has been partially skinned and dumped on waste ground: muscles, tendons and ligaments exposed to view. Only this time, her face has also been removed.

Jon Spicer and his new partner, Rick Saville, are approached by a woman who insists she heard 'The Butcher' claiming his latest victim in the next-door room of a run-down hotel in Belle Vue. But all she has to back up her story is an escort’s business card recovered from the empty room the following morning.

Jon's investigation takes him into the twilight world of Manchester's sex workers and the unscrupulous cosmetic surgery industry, eventually forcing him to confront the potential for violence within every man – even within himself.