The Pure in Heart is the second of Susan Hill's novels set in the English Cathedral town of Lafferton and featuring the enigmatic policeman, Detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler. A little boy is kidnapped as he stands with his satchel at the gate of his home, waiting for his lift to school. An ex-con finds it impossible to stay straight. A severely handicapped young woman dies in the night-has someone who loves her...
When a woman's body is found in a North London flat clutching a bloodstained sliver of X-ray, DI Thorne discovers that the victim's mother had herself been murdered fifteen years before by the infamous serial killer Raymond Garvey. When more bodies and more fragments of X-ray are discovered, a horrifying picture emerges: a killer is targeting the children of Garvey's victims...