When Detective Inspector Bill Reid is found murdered in the tranquil grounds of the St Peter's Police Treatment Centre, and compromising photographs are discovered in his room, DCI Banks is called in to investigate. It emerges that Reid's murder may be linked to the disappearance of an English girl in Tallinn, Estonia, six years earlier. While DI Annie Cabbot looks into the case in Eastvale, Banks travels to Tallinn to track down leads in the dark, cobbled alleys of the city's Old Town. But it soon becomes clear that someone doesn't want the past stirred up, and that solving the interlinked crimes may put even more lives in jeopardy.