ONCE UPON A TIME LIKE YOU'VE NEVER HEARD IT BEFORE . . .

DI Lyla Rondell is on the case of a lifetime. Tasked with investigating a series of perplexing deaths, the only lead she has is that each appears to be based on a different classic fairy tale. Far from the stuff of bedtime stories, the press is having a field day with what they have named the Grimm Ripper Murders.

But as the bodies stack up, Lyla’s whole world is about to flip on its head. Because the killer’s bloody trail stretches deep into her own origin story, and when she discovers the truth, nothing will ever be the same again.

Faced with the fact that everything she knows is fiction, Lyla will have to take a little creative license of her own if she’s going to turn the final page on the killings . . .

'An exquisite puzzle of a crime thriller, it revels in the shadows, as reality is savagely entwined with the very roots of storytelling itself… Prepare to be spellbound because A. K. Benedict is a master of this darkest art’ JANICE HALLETT

‘A clever, clever, thoroughly meta, extraordinarily enjoyable modern fairy-tale with layer after layer of intrigue and a breathless pace, I loved it, especially the delicious happy ever after’ ANDREA MARA

‘Hugely inventive and mind-bendingly clever’ CLAIRE McGOWAN