Val McDermid is the author of an excellent series featuring Tony Hill, a troubled profiler. In Fever of the Bone, someone is luring teenagers over the Internet and murdering them.

Tony’s friend and colleague Inspector Carol Jordan’s new boss won’t allow her to employ Tony, so he goes off to Manchester to consult on a case. Later, two boys disappear in Bradfield. Neither Carol nor Tony know it, but they are both working on cases with the same killer.

Tony has also inherited some property from his father, whom he never met. He just wants to ignore the situation, but Carol thinks it’s important that he try to find out about his father.

As usual with a McDermid novel, the book introduces interesting characters and has an involving plot.