Cold Blooded

Cold Blooded continues where Rings of Smoke left off. Serial killer Leonard Fitch faked his death in a massive fire and explosion at his lodge in the English Lake District, but not before nursing his fourth Birthday Girl victim back to health and leaving her safe for the police to find. He left behind a suicide note and a dead body for the police to discover — that of his mother. The body was too badly burned to be identified, so it was assumed to be that of Firtch. Case closed.

But Fitch wasn't dead, far from it. He had escaped the fire and, with a new identity, was able to travel to America to continue his reign of terror. From Chicago, all along Route 66, he leaves a trail of dead bodies until settling in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he slips back into his old ways in his secluded lodge in the forest around Lake Tahoe.

Fitch, now Noel Raditch, makes one mistake in his so far unblemished career as a serial killer. A year after releasing his last victim, Erin Fallon, he sends her a birthday card from Boston, signing it Leonard. Alerted to the fact that Fitch might still be alive, the case is reopened and the two detectives who investigated the original crimes, Harris and Jones, are sent across the pond to investigate.