When a woman's skeleton is discovered in a shallow grave, DCI Andy Gilchrist is tasked with finding her killer. But a psychic's warnings and markings on a rusted cigarette lighter found among the rotted remains set Gilchrist off on a trail that will take him thirty-five years into his past and on course to unmask the killer of his brother in a fatal hit-and-run accident a generation ago.

When dental records from an extracted tooth at the murder scene force Gilchrist to confront the unthinkable - that his brother was a killer - he keeps his fears to himself, only to be suspended on suspicion of destroying evidence.

But Gilchrist battles on in his quest for answers. Who was the woman? Why was she murdered? And was his brother's fatal hit-and-run really an accident?

Fearful of the final outcome, Gilchrist is torn between right and wrong. Should he expose the truth and save his own career at the cost of his brother’s memory? Or leave it buried among the lies of the past?