Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner could be forgiven for thinking not only that someone up there doesn't like him, but that someone down here is out to get him. Suffering the strain of a marriage on the rocks, the last thing he needs is for his private life to be plastered across the front pages of a sleazy tabloid. To make matters worse, when a woman, already linked to Skinner by tragedy, is found battered, raped and strangled, with her young son a kidnap victim, his search for the killer becomes a personal quest. Finally, as a second brutal crime, and new allegations about the detective himself, make simultaneous headlines, he finds himself at the centre of a deadly maze of conspiracy. As time ticks away, Skinner faces the greatest, and most personal, tests of his career. Unless he can clear his name, and uncover the secret behind the series of brutal crimes, he stands to lose all: his family, his career, and even his life and liberty.