Events decades before in Germany haunt the present lives of several of the characters. What starts as a favour for a friend in Halifax by retired judge Hamish Cameron turns into a web of intrigue and murder. But just as he and his detective-agency partner, Sean Carroll, seem to be closing in on the murderer, they realise that things are very different from what they thought. The answer is buried in the past, and it is in the interest of the culprit to keep it buried.