The third instalment of the bestelling Dr. Wren Muller series from the host of Morbid: A true crime podcast.

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Two months after the life-changing events on the tale of a serial killer known as the 'Bayou Butcher', forensic pathologist Dr. Wren Muller is back in the place she knows best: the New Orleans morgue. She buries herself in routine, surrounded by both familiar and new company, John Leroux and Maya Rodriguez, trying to convince herself that normality can be rebuilt. But in the weeks leading up to Halloween, shadows begin to move again as young girls vanish in both cities where Jeremy Rose, the unmasked Bayou Butcher, once ran rampant.

Hundreds of miles away, the pastor to a close-knit congregation in Massachusetts Philip Trudeau is back behind the pulpit. But beneath his practiced composure lies something sinister-gruesome secrets and a hunger that did not die when Jeremy was caged.

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Praise for the Dr. Wren Muller series:

'CAPTIVATING. The reader might want to shut their eyes, but the joust between the killer and the pathologist makes that impossible' - DAILY MAIL

'Amazing twists. Unputdownable' - Samantha Downing, author of My Lovely Wife

'Alaina Urquhart has set a new benchmark for the serial killer novel' - Margot Douaihy, USA Today bestselling author of Scorched Grace and Blessed Water

'Urquhart has crafted a thriller that is necessarily graphic but not exploitative. The crisp detail, the narrative brevity and the blade-sharp connections between the pathologist and the killer all bode well for future installments' - Sarah Weinman, New York Times

'A read-in-one-sitting kind of book' - Sarah Gelman, CBS Mornings

'Urquhart paints a tense and dangerous world for us right from the start and delivers it all with a skilled and evocative hand' - Aaron Mahnke, creator of the Lore podcast and author of The World of Lore series

'Looking for the perfect way to kick off your spooky season? Well, you can end your search now as the co-host of the wildly popular true-crime podcast Morbid, who is also an autopsy technician, is offering up a twisted tale of a serial killer terrorizing the Louisiana bayou. Told from the dueling perspectives of a notorious murderer and the medical examiner who is desperate to catch him, this cat-and-mouse thriller will give your goosebumps chills' - Tierney Bricker, E! News

'A serial killer novel like none you have ever read, The Butcher and the Wren takes a cat-and-mouse chase between two instantly memorable antagonists and turns all the conventions of the genre upside down. Dark, twisty, full of authentic detail, it'll have you listening to the night in an entirely different way' - Neil Nyren, Booktrib

'Alaina Urquhart treats fans of pulse-pounding novels to a thrill ride pitting a notorious serial killer in a battle of wits against the medical examiner determined to bring him down' - Books-A-Million