Author(s): Minette Walters

Fiction

Acid Row is the name the beleaguered inhabitants give to their 'sink' estate, a no-man's land of single mothers and fatherless children, where angry, alienated youth control the streets. Into this battlefield comes Sophie Morrison, a young doctor visiting a patient in Acid Row. Little does she know that she is entering the home of a known paedophile...and with reports circulating that a tormented child called Amy has disappeared, the vigilantes are out in force...
Soon Sophie is trapped at the centre of a terrifying siege, with a man she has come to despise. Whipped to a frenzy by the unsubstantiated rumour, the mob unleashes its hatred against authority, the law, 'the pervert'.
'Protecting Amy' becomes the catch-all defence for the terrible events that follow - and if murder is part of it, then so be it.
But is Amy really missing?