When Julian Schaeffer is shot in front of his son in a London park, suspicion falls on his estranged wife. The woman has a seemingly watertight alibi, but Carlyle – trying to make the best of a difficult relationship with his new sergeant, Umar Sligo – won’t stop digging.

Focused on the Schaeffer case, the inspector is not too interested when Daniel Sands is hauled in to Charing Cross, accused of kidnapping. Then he discovers Sands’s back-story and finds himself propelled forward in a quest for justice for two fathers and their destroyed families.