A welcome return for Hamburg murder cop Jan Fabel and it's every bit as engrossing as earlier outings like Brother Grimm and Eternal.

Fabel is thrust into the world of cyber crime as the Network Killer, who stalks victims online, dumps yet another brutalised body.

Meanwhile a politician asks Fabel to find his missing girlfrie the nd, and he find no evidence that she ever existed.

Both mysteries link to Pharos, a rich, powerful and cult-like environmental group that believes the Earth can be saved by transferring human consciousness to computers.

Fabel is followed, attacked and framed for murder by the shadowy organisation and its ruthless Consolidators in this absorbing paperback.

Hamburg this across the water from Sweden and the Fabel books, although written by a Scotsman, read like the Scandinavian crime novels of Jo Nesbo.

David Knights