Barely a month since his promotion to Inspector, DI Ford is called in to investigate the murder of a young nurse and her son in a small flat in Salisbury. Ford can sense that there’s a serial killer at work. After all, he knows from brutal personal experience how killers cover their tracks. When instinct leads him towards a high-profile suspect, his superiors’ warnings just make him more determined to connect impulse and fact. But can Ford hold it all together—the case, his life—long enough to stop the killer?

After a dog walker discovers human remains in a badger sett in the idyllic Salisbury countryside, DI Ford is called in to lead the ensuing murder investigation. When a second victim turns up in a nearby pond, Ford is determined to find the connection. Still consumed by guilt over his part in his wife’s tragic accident and struggling to raise the teenage son he lied to, Ford now finds himself losing control of the investigation. Can he work with Hannah to solve the case while privately fighting off attempted blackmail? Or have his demons finally caught up with him?

A young female soldier is found on Salisbury Plain, her throat cut and a bloody knife in her dead hand. Everyone assumes that she killed herself. But something doesn’t feel right to DI Ford; the whole scene seems staged. Convinced of foul play, and despite fierce opposition from the army brass and his own superiors, Ford launches a murder investigation.

Years on from his wife’s death, Ford is still struggling with guilt and whether or not to tell his son the truth about what really happened. When his CSI partner confronts him about the tragedy, he knows he has to confess sooner or later. But the living can wait; the dead are calling. With the victim’s regiment due to deploy to Somalia, taking any suspects and evidence with them, Ford has just days to apprehend the killer.