Night nurse Elaine Dobbs may be overworked and underpaid, but she has created a very special atmosphere in her ward and is extremely attentive to her patients. However, rather too many of them are dying.

A corpse is fished out of a north London canal with stab wounds through the eyes. A gruesome opening: but the victim was a prominent member of the Hasidic Jewish community, and the cause of death one reserved by the Hasidim to punish "moysers", or informers.

This tale of ritual murder and the refusal of the tight-knit Hasidic community to co-operate with the police has already caused controversy.