When the decomposed remains of a young woman are discovered just outside Birmingham, criminologist Will Traynor is drawn into a baffling investigation.

When the badly decomposed remains of a young woman are discovered in an isolated wooded area just outside Birmingham, the victim is quickly identified as Amy Peters, a Manchester University student who disappeared three years earlier. She is one of five young women who vanished from the streets of Manchester within a two-year period.

Called in to assist the police investigation, criminologist Will Traynor believes they are looking for an intelligent, socially confident individual, someone adept at covering his tracks. But why would the killer transport the victim on an eighty-mile journey from Manchester to Birmingham? If he can find the answer to that question, Traynor believes he has the key to cracking the case.

But at every stage of the investigation, the killer seems to be one step ahead of him. If he’s going to outsmart him, Will realizes he’s going to have to play this twisted individual at his own deadly game.