Neil Carson had been a pathologist in Hereford city for a long time; his divorced wife and son were happy to accept the explanation of the Coroner's Office that he was drunk and drowned in the river outside his house but his daughter, Maggie, cannot believe it. She is also a pathologist and she cannot accept the picture that is painted of a man who has a drink problem. When Tony Knight - who assisted Neil Carson in the autopsy room during the last week of his life - is battered to death, she is more convinced than ever, but no one else is. Desperate to find evidence that the death is suspicious, she is forced to break the law and do the unthinkable. Help comes in the form of Sam Fisher, a good friend of her father. He is an ex-policeman; his close to death because of pancreatic cancer. Unbeknown to her, he has other motives. He lives in fear of Jack Skinner, a gangster that he once knew too well and for whom Tony Knight once worked. In the past, Jack Skinner has committed terribly atrocities without compunction and Sam fears that he is somehow connected with the deaths. Anyone who stands in the way of Jack Skinner is likely to die, and Maggie and Sam find themselves in just that position as they try to find out who might have killed her father and why.