NOT IN THE FLESH by Ruth Rendell

Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something less savoury - a human hand.

The body, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for ten years or so, wrapped in a purple cotton sheet. The post-mortem cannot reveal the precise cause of death. The only clue is a crack in one of the dead man's ribs.

The police computer stores a long list of missing persons. Men, women and children disappear at an alarming rate, something like 500 every day, nationwide. So Wexford knows he's going to have a job on his hands to identify the corpse.

And then, only twenty yards away from the woodland burial site, in the cellar of a disused cottage, another body is found.

Hard cover, good condition. The dust jacket is clean. Slight foxing.