Two hostages. One bullet. A killer decision. Would you sacrifice yourself for another?

A deranged criminal abducts couples – the victims wake up disorientated and desperate, they’re trapped with no one to hear their screams. They shout and plead, they scramble around, and that’s when they find the gun loaded with one bullet and with it a terrible ultimatum: one of you lives and one of you dies. For the captor, it’s simple: set the scene, play the waiting game and leave them to do the hard work. For the victims, it’s psychological torture.

Helen Grace and her staff at Southampton Central Police Station are up against it. As well as hunting for a complex criminal, they must protect the damaged survivors, the abductor’s living calling cards. More pairs are kidnapped in quick succession: a mother and daughter, two work colleagues, a university couple - but how are they all linked? Helen throws everything at a case that suddenly, terrifyingly, begins to turn full circle…

In this startling debut, M.J. Arlidge makes us examine the strength of relationships, dark choices and the meaning of sacrifice. The writing rockets off the page as each of these intricate characters pull you into psychologically rich subplots. Eeny Meeny is the first in a series featuring Helen Grace with each title taking the form of a popular children’s nursery rhyme. His next book Pop Goes The Weasel will be published in 2015.