The murder exchange - Simon Kernick

Five grand for a couple of hours work? Thats what nightclub owner Roy Fowlers offering ex-mercenary Max Iversson to act as security for a meeting hes having with the businessmen who are supposedly buying his club. But when they turn up at the deserted north London industrial estate where the meetings taking place, things go wrong and three men end up dead, including two of Iverssons colleagues. Now he wants to know whos behind the killings.

Detective Sergeant John Gallan is also looking for answers. Hes investigating the fatal poisoning by snakebite of a doorman from Fowlers club. Lead are scarce and when they do appear so do bodies.

But Gallan keeps digging away, unearthing in the process a murderous conspiracy spanning this investigation and another, more heinous murder thats been shelved, unsolved, for a long time. Unknown to each other, he and Iversson are also heading towards a final, devastating confrontation from which neither man is likely to emerge intact.