Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner’s legendary cool is severely shaken when he’s faced with the brutally murdered bodies of his wife’s parents. At the death scene in New York, Skinner’s out of his jurisdiction—but he’s not going to let that stop him from shaping the investigation. It’s soon clear that there’s a killer hunting down a group of men with links that go back to the sixties, and that he’s acting on instructions from highly placed sources. But just how high? Meanwhile, back in Edinburgh, Detective Superintendent Maggie Rose and her husband Mario, Divisional CID Commander, are faced with a secret from their past that could bring their days at the police force crashing to a halt.