Inspector Andy Horton’s holiday peace is shattered when stepping out across an abandoned golf course on the Isle of Wight on a cold, grey January, he finds himself facing a distraught young woman with a gun in her hand leaning over a corpse in one of the discarded bunkers.
When she professes to be the dead man’s sister and psychic, Horton’s old adversary, DCI Birch, is convinced she is mentally disturbed and the killer, but Horton is not so sure.  He feels a strange affinity towards the woman, and a sense of recognition even though he’s convinced they’ve never met.  When it’s revealed that the dead man was working on a top-level environmental project on behalf of the European Commission, Horton is urged by Superintendent Uckfield to go undercover. His mission is to trap a clever killer, but he soon finds his own life in danger... Then another death changes everything.

With no clear suspects, and a confusion of possible motives, a frustrating, complex case is complicated still further by Horton’s growing feelings and concern for the woman.  As he goes in search of the truth, aided by Sergeant Cantelli, Horton uncovers a web of intrigue that ripples down the years, and which someone is determined should never be revealed.