Before the days of the National Health Service and modern psychiatry, common wisdom called for brain paste - a mash of the pituitary glands of cow - as a remedy for mental illness. Doctors have forgotten; the general public has forgotten; but Bartholomew Garrod, of East London's 'Garrod's Family Butchers' has not forgotten, and he is using more than just animals to treat his brother . . . he is murdering people. When a body is found, ripped apart and torn, although the slashings appear random, Detective Inspector Alison Dexter recognizes that the marks are actually butchers' cuts of meats: the primal cuts. Meanwhile, in Cambridgeshire, a vicious bare-knuckle fight, results in a dead body, complete with bite wounds. Are the cases linked? As Alison Dexter investigates, she starts receiving threatening letters and body parts - human body parts. Time is running short and Dexter desperately needs to find the murderer . . . before he finds her.