A heart - a human heart - slithering down outside the window of a train travelling between London Bridge and Blackfriars. Someone must have thrown it out from a carriage in front. Kumiko is determined to find out who - and why. But Skelton was sitting next to Kumiko on the train and he saw it too, so he also wants to get to the bottom of the mystery. Or he says he does, but really he just wants Kumiko back, because she's walked out on him, just like that, and left him heartbroken. Each for their own reasons, Kumiko and Skelton set out - separately - on a bizarre trail of discovery. Darting between dingy student pubs, the roofs of Borough Market and the corridors and car-parks of Guy's Hospital, they become embroiled in the seedy world of young medical students, until eventually the gossip and the stories lead them both to the hospital's infamous dissection lecturer - known behind his back as 'King Death'...

    Nick loved and lusted for her the first time he saw her. But what he didn't know was that Luz had secrets--that beneath the glamour and sex appeal was a woman determined to turn her back on wealth and challenge a corrupt political system. Even if it meant her life. Nick started out dirt poor--as a child, he survived the war-torn frozen hell of the Siege of Leningrad and saw his mother starve to death as fat cat bureaucrats ate well. He learned early that there were the haves and have-nots in this world. He was going to get everything rich people had--and more. From a brutal Soviet orphanage to a plantation in the steamy jungles of the Caribbean, from sultry, violent Havana to the dangerous streets of Santo Domingo, Nick battled men who controlled and exploited the wealth of nations. With bootleg vodka and exotic rum, he built a business empire that would one day bring him into conflict with the most brutal dictator in the Caribbean--and a struggle for the love and life of the only woman he ever truly loved.

    Instead, she's a teacher, a mum and wife to Julian, a very English husband. When disaster befalls her best friend, Karina feels forced to question the very foundations of her existence.