Oxford is turning into a city of fear for female students terrorized by a killer dubbed 'The One-a-Month Man' because of the ritualistic regularity of his crimes. The perpetrator's hideous calling-card is a condom thrust into the mouth of each victim. Thirty years later, and DNA-profiling has enabled son of a US senator, and frontline CIA operative, Richard Pope, to be identified as the killer. A survivor, Tina Marlowe, finds herself in danger once more, from the man who would benefit most from her silence. The race is on and the legend assigned to trace Tina before she is tracked down by her lethal enemy, is Mike Lorenzo, the bad but brilliant detective inspector of Scotland Yard, exiled to Oxford, his Elba, out in the cold on the dead-case beat. Just the challenge he needs to redeem himself and bring him in from the cold.