Brighton based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is a hard-working police officer who has given his life to the job, but his career is currently at rock bottom. He’s fixated by the disappearance of his beloved wife, Sandy, and running enquiries into long forgotten cold cases with little prospect of success. Following another reprimand for his unorthodox police methods, Grace is walking a career tightrope and risks being moved from the job he loves most.
Grace and Branson investigate a case where nothing is truly as it first appears. When an unidentified victim is found dead in curious circumstances, the post mortem reveals more questions than it does answers. As Grace works to identify the body, hoping this might provide some crucial clue as to the killer’s motive, he soon has another death on his hands when a second victim shows up in central Brighton, discovered in similarly bizarre circumstances.