A woman and her stepson are gunned down while driving to school on a quiet residential street. An former bodyguard kills himself by firing two pistols simultaneously. Was the killer really aft er the woman 's husband, the notorious drug baron Mansel Shale? And what possible connection could Shale 's collection of pre-Raphaelite works of art have to the killings? Nothing in Bill James 's latest Harpur & Iles thriller is as it seems. When the police chase the shooting suspect into a busy second-hand shop the action quickly turns into a deadly cat-and-mouse standoff . As the siege unfolds, with more than just gunplay in the mix, events threaten to take down more than the gunman and his hostages. Will this spell the end of Detective Harpur and his troubled boss, Assistant Chief Constable Iles?