Detective Inspector John Rebus has no desk to work from, as a hint from his superiors that he should consider retirement, but he and his protegee Siobhan Clarke are still investigating some seemingly unconnected cases. The sister of a dead rape victim is missing; stolen medical skeletons turn up embedded in a concrete floor; a Kurdish journalist is brutally murdered; and the son of a Glasgow gangster has moved into the Edinburgh vice scene.
The book uses two new settings; a sink estate divided between racist thugs and refugees (based on Wester Hailes), and a small town whose economy is dominated by an internment camp for asylum-seekers (based on Dungavel).