Acid Lullaby

Underwood and Dexter #2

by Ed O'Connor

City trader Max Fallon is a successful sexual predator. He is closing in on the latest object of his desire. But his luck is about to run out.

When a vengeful colleague spikes his drink with LSD, Fallon endures a terrifying psychological episode. Trapped between memory and delusion, he is transformed into a monster, and believes himself to be Soma, the reincarnation of a Hindu God.

At the same time the murder of a drug dealer in Cambridgeshire, signals the start of a different kind of ordeal for Inspector Alison Dexter. While struggling to coordinate the manhunt, Dexter is forced to confront two demons from her own past - the reappearance of a man who poisoned her career and the resurfaced memory of a life she had to destroy.

Dexter's former boss, John Underwood, returns to New Bolden CID after medical leave to hear that Jack Harvey - the police psychiatrist who saved Underwood's sanity - has been savagely murdered. Events take on an added urgency when Harvey's wife is then brutally abducted. Baffled by the killer's crazed modus operandi, Underwood finds himself tangled in Dexter's investigation.

As the two seemingly unconnected cases collide, drug-addiction, kidnapping and ritualistic murder merge into a real live nightmare.

Genres: Thriller

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

ED O'CONNOR studied History at Cambridge University before moving over to Oxford University to take an MPhil in International Relations. He then worked in London and New York as an investment banker but left to concentrate on his writing. In 2002 his first novel, The Yeare`s Midnight, was published by Constable and Robinson and was followed in 2003 by Acid Lullaby, both of which were shortlisted for awards. Now working as the Head of the History department at a local school, Ed lives in Maidstone, Kent, with his wife and two young daughters.