A young girl falls to her death, and the shadowy figure of a young boy is caught on CCTV... DI Joe Faraday is on the case, but his investigation is hampered when resources are switched to a murder enquiry prompted by the discovery of the body of a small time crook on wasteland north of the city. Faraday plunges into Portsmouth's bleak netherworld of wrecked families and children cast adrift in a society too fragmented to care. But as he tracks down the boy, he is faced with a crisis much closer to home.