"The shocking conclusion of Elizabeth George's previous bestseller, With No One As Witness, saw the wife of New Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley gunned down in the street outside her home. Under arrest for the crime is a twelve-year-old boy, Joel Campbell. What possible motive could he have? What chain of events could have led such a child from the cramped dwellings of North Kensington to the elegant streets of Belgravia with such deadly intent?

The answer to these questions is a complex mixture of fate and circumstance. Abandoned (albeit involuntarily) by his parents, Joel and two siblings are dumped on the doorstep of their aunt's house. Kendra, childless and with two marriages behind her, is determined to turn her life around; responsibility for three troubled children is not part of her game plan.

Drugs, neglect, violence and poverty are commonplace in North Kensington. Joel does his best to look out for his family, but that involves a Faustian pact. And the Devil will have his pay.

Elizabeth George's new novel is a tense and dramatic urban thriller that highlights the harsh realities of life for many young people today. Step by step, we accompany Joel on his road to perdition as events unfold with the awful inevitability of Greek tragedy culminating in a terrible act of violence."