Mystery fiction. Detective and mystery stories. After a heady New Year's Eve ball, a woman is brutally raped as she returns to her room in the Metropole Hotel, Brighton. A week later, another woman is attacked. Both victims' shoes are taken by the offender. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace soon realises that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997. The perpetrator had been dubbed Shoe Man' and was believed to have raped five women before murdering his sixth victim and vanishing. When more women are assaulted, Grace becomes increasingly certain that they are dealing with the same man, and that by delving back into the past he may find the key to unlocking the current mystery. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a desperate race against the clock to identify and save the life of the new sixth victim.