Few Are Chosen — Tim Ellis

Parish and Richards are given the case of a naked man found in a ditch who has been tortured, his genitalia severed and stuffed in his mouth. It quickly becomes apparent that the victim is an accused rapist who was released the previous day due to mistakes made by the Crown Prosecution Service. The case soon becomes a national issue, the feminists get involved and a circuit judge is abducted. Xena and Stick have the case of a man who is shot on his own doorstep by a clown in a stolen car. It soon become evident that they're dealing with much more than a simple murder, especially when a silver charm bracelet found in the boot of the torched stolen car leads them back to a jewellery robbery in 2003 and a missing Swedish university student called Lotta Stenson. Then, of course, Xena has other worries, such as the murder of an MI5 agent that Ryder Dutton wants her to solve, and an implanted microchip in the murder victim that nobody knows what it does.