Quirke is plunged into a world of corruption that takes him to the darkest corners of religion. "At first they thought it was the body of a child. Then they noticed the pubic hair and the nicotine stains on the fingers." So begins the latest Quirke case, a story set in Dublin at a moment when newspapers are censored, social conventions are strictly defined, and appalling crimes are hushed up. Why? Because in postwar Ireland the Catholic Church controls the lives of nearly everyone. But when his daughter, Phoebe loses her close friend Jimmy Minor to murder, Quirke can no longer play by the Church's rules.