Chief Inspector Serrailler investigates a seemingly random series of murders targeting young women in the cathedral town of Lafferton, cases he is certain are related in spite of their varying methods.

When a series of flash floods throughout Lafferton exposes the skeleton of a teenager who went missing twenty years earlier, Simon Serrailler investigates the girl's tragic family story and uncovers bizarre complexities and dangers.

Investigating a cold case while recovering from a near-fatal injury, Simon Serrailler finds his personal and professional lives intertwining in unexpected ways when his constable brother-in-law suffers a setback at the same time an arsonist begins a deadly rampage.

From the outside, the cathedral town of Lafferton seems idyllic, but in many ways it is just like any other place. It suffers from the same kinds of crime, is subject to the same pressures from a rapidly changing world, and has the same hopes and fears as any number of towns up and down the land. When Simon Serrailler is called in by Lafferton's new Chief Constable, Kieran Bright, he is met by two plainclothes officers, who ask him to take the principal...