Ritual

Ritual

(Jack Caffery Book 3): the terrifying, tense and spine-tingling thriller from bestselling author Mo Hayder

Summary

Fans of Stephen King, Karin Slaughter and Stuart MacBride will devour this dark and disturbing thriller.

'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
'If it's real terror you're after, Mo Hayder is your woman' DAILY MAIL


-----

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...

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...

Reviews

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

About the author

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.
Learn More

More in this series

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more