Ritual

Featuring Jack Caffrey, star of BBC’s Wolf series. A gripping and compelling thriller from the bestselling author

Fans of Stephen King, Stuart MacBride and Karin Slaughter will devour this dark and disturbing thriller from bestselling and prize-winning author Mo Hayder. Expertly weaving ancient rites with modern forensics, it draws you in and paints a picture so vivid and compelling in the mind, you'll be hooked from page one...

'Intensely enthralling' - OBSERVER
'Expect plenty of blood, gore and black magic' -- DAILY MIRROR
'A vivid and thorough exploration of the clash between ancient superstition and modern science, with plenty of thrills and chills along the way' - GUARDIAN
'Really can recommend and I'm not one for giving the story away so try it yourself and you won't be disappointed!' -- ***** Reader review
'I couldn't put it down and finished it in a week' -- ***** Reader review
'Fantastic and thrilling' -- ***** Reader review
'Darkly enthralling, was hooked in' -- ***** Reader review

*****
Just after lunch on a Tuesday in April, nine feet under water, police diver Flea Marley closes her gloved fingers around a human hand. The fact that there's no body attached is disturbing enough. Yet more disturbing is the discovery, a day later, of the matching hand.

Both have been recently amputated, and the indications are that the victim was still alive when they were removed.

DI Jack Caffery has been newly seconded to the Major Crime Investigation Unit in Bristol. He and Flea soon establish that the hands belong to a boy who has recently disappeared.

Their search for him - and for his abductor - lead them into the darkest recesses of Bristol's underworld, where drug addiction is rife, where street-kids sell themselves for a hit, and where an ancient evil lurks; an evil that feeds off the blood - and flesh - of others ...

About the series

Mo Hayder's Jack Caffery series is not for the faint-hearted.
DI Jack Caffery specialises in the most gruesome, twisted and terrifying crimes. Against the clock to find the killer before the next murder is committed, Caffery is young, unshockable and driven.

Mo Hayder is inimitable. She surpasses even Ruth Rendell in her ability to find horror in everyday things... Intensely enthralling

OBSERVER

About Mo Hayder

MO HAYDER left school at fifteen. She worked as a barmaid, security guard, filmmaker, hostess in a Tokyo club, educational administrator and teacher of English as a foreign language in Asia. She had an MA in film from The American University in Washington DC and an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University UK.

Mo was the Sunday Times bestselling author of ten stunning crime novels, including the Jack Caffery series. Her fifth crime novel Ritual was nominated for the Barry Award for Best Crime 2009 and voted Best Book of 2008 by Publisher's Weekly. She won the CWA Dagger in the Library in 2011. Gone, her seventh novel, won the Edgar Allen Poe Award and her novel Wolf was nominated for Best Novel in the 2015 Edgar Awards, and is currently being adapted for the BBC.

Set primarily in an alternate universe, her most recent novel, The Book of Sand, is the first in a series published posthumously under the author name THEO CLARE.

Mo Hayder was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in December 2020 and passed away in July 2021.

She leaves behind a husband and a daughter, a powerful legacy of books, and an incredible number of people who loved and admired her.
Details
  • Series: Jack Caffery
  • Imprint: Bantam
  • ISBN: 9780553820430
  • Length: 560 pages
  • Dimensions: 198mm x 33mm x 127mm
  • Weight: 377g
  • Price: £10.99
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