When an old man is murdered at a Scottish nature reserve, DI Jim Carruthers investigates a web of deadly secrets reaching decades into the past.

While struggling to help his grieving colleague, Sergeant Andrea Fletcher, Detective Inspector Jim Carruthers is thrown into another troubling murder case. The body of an old man was discovered stabbed to death in a nature reserve—a ball of cloth rammed into the back of his throat. The only suspect is a local fifteen-year-old known for antisocial behavior. But the teenager has an alibi. 

When a second elderly man is murdered in the same fashion at the same locale, Carruthers suspects it’s the work of a serial killer. But when revelations about the first victim send Carruthers to Iceland to interview the man’s estranged son, the case becomes truly baffling.

The seemingly disconnected threads of investigation include the decades-old disappearance of a twelve-year-old boy, the brutal murder of a former journalist, and a bitter local dispute about a nature reserve. And when Carruthers and Fletcher put the pieces together, they will lead them straight into a killer’s path.