Inspector Rumsey Bucke, a still-grieving widower, must find Daniel Guy who has tried and failed to murder his own wife. He tracks him steadily through the murky streets of Swansea’s poorest communities, with little help from a corrupt and incompetent police force. Two fatal stabbings, which may or may not be connected, put Bucke’s position under threat from a scheming superior. However, he finds the will and the support to change his life from an unlikely source, the wife of a prime murder suspect. As he finally confronts his own sorrow, he discovers that terrible secrets lurk beneath the surface of the ordinary lives around him. No one can ever escape from the secret burdens they carry with them. 

But there are unknown figures lurking in the shadows and Bucke is drawn into the dangerous world of international politics, with assassins playing out a clandestine war on the streets of the town, ready to kill the innocent to protect themselves. As he desperately runs out of time to prevent another murder, Bucke has to find the answers which have eluded him. Who is the murderer? Is it Daniel Guy? Is it someone else? Just how many murderers are there? There is a bigger question for him too. If, as they say, justice is blind, are there occasions when the law should be blind too?