Ripe for retirement in the eyes of some, Tennison is still up for a fight, and she'll need all the energy she can muster when she takes on the darker forces of British government in search of a sadistic killer with a guilty past.

Having been demoted and transferred to the north, D.C.I. Tennison finds herself under-used until she gets a case where a 12-year-old boy confesses to murder. She becomes involved with trying to convict the local crime boss who has proved impossible to touch.