07:45am<br>A monk lies dead in Snowdonia, a knife protruding from his throat. A young family is being held at gunpoint in a house in Wimbledon. The mission has begun.<br><br>08:56am<br>A London Underground train is stationary in a tunnel, four hundred passengers trapped inside. All efforts to communicate with it have been met with silence.<br><br>09:15am<br>DCI Ed Mallory has just started his day. The Met’s top hostage negotiator is about to discover that, today, an underground train is not the only thing on the line.<br><br>In this modern-day thriller set in the subway tunnels beneath London, DCI Ed Mallory of the London police faces the greatest challenge of his brilliant, if somewhat unconventional, career as a hostage crisis negotiator. Blinded in a grenade blast during the course of only his second official negotiation, Mallory has over the ensuing years developed other faculties to compensate for the lack of sight, including an acute sense of hearing and penetrating insight into the twisted workings of the criminal mind. Driven and obsessive, Mallory now faces a high-stakes showdown with a psychopath who combines religious fanaticism and a chilling disregard for human life. Will Mallory's skills be enough to save London from a baptism by blood?