A Bitter Taste, the second Catherine Berlin novel from Annie Hauxwell, is fast-paced, addictive crime spiked with grit and grunge.

Treachery becomes a habit.

London is in the grip of a stifling heatwave. The city has slowed to a claustrophobic shuffle; heroin-addicted investigator Catherine Berlin suffers while working the lowest of investigations- matrimonial.

The city’s junkies are in the grip of a drought of a different kind. Sonja Kvist, a strung-out ghost from Berlin’s past, turns up on her doorstep. Sonja’s daughter is missing. An unpaid debt leaves Berlin no choice but to take the case of the missing ten-year-old.

Berlin is back, but soon the hunter becomes the hunted- corrupt detectives are on Berlin’s tail chasing drugs she doesn’t have, a young girl is murdered and the matrimonial case takes a fatal turn. And the temperature keeps rising.

‘Annie Hauxwell has given us a heroine for our bleak new age. Catch the wave now, while it’s building.’ The Times

‘Tough, fast-paced and peopled with believable characters, this is crime fiction for the 21st century.’ Sunday Canberra Times