No cure for love - Peter Robinson

Before you discovered DCI Banks, Detective Arvo Hughes was on the case in this vintage standalone crime thriller from Peter Robinson.

In 1990s Los Angeles, the beautiful star of a hit TV cop show is being sent strange letters.

At first, Sarah Broughton dismisses the letters as the ramblings of a lonely fan. But when the letters take on a disturbing tone and Sarah discovers a body in the sand outside her Malibu beach house, the experts are brought in.

Working as a detective in the LAPD Threat Management Unit, Arvo Hughes has seen it all before: stalkers, love obsessionals, erotomaniacs - willing to kill themselves and their supposed love objects over their devotion. He knows the language they use and the patterns they follow.

But there is no pattern to follow here. Dealing with a highly unpredictable but extremely violent killer, Arvo feels certain Sarah's stalker must have met her before. But with the squeaky-clean star doing all she can to keep memories of a shady history locked away, Arvo must delve into her past himself.