Like hunters, coppers need luck, skill, patience - plus the ability to think and feel like their prey, to get under its skin. For countryman DCI Alan Woodcock, hunting criminals was just another kind of hunting, calling for the same skills, but with no close season. Was Cocky Cottrell murdered in the peaceful English countryside, or was it suicide? Was the very definite murder of a village blackmailer local revenge - or connected with an attempt on an American presidential candidate's life? For that matter, was the presidential candidate the real target?