Publisher's Synopsis
A girl's body lies, posed, on the pale sand of a Hamburg beach, a message concealed in her hand: "I have been underground, and now it is time for me to return home..." Jan Fabel, of the Hamburg murder squad, is struggling to interpret this twisted imagery. Four days later, a man and a woman are found deep in woodland, their throats slashed, the names "Hansel" and "Gretel" written on slips of paper pressed into their hands, in the same tiny, obsessively neat writing. It becomes clear that each new crime is a grisly reference to folk stories collected almost 200 years ago by the Brothers Grimm. The hunt is on for a serial killer who is exploring the darkest most fundamental fears hidden in ancient fairy tales. A predator who kills and then disappears into the shadows. A monster we all learned to fear in childhood.
