Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy and her sergeant, Mike Korpanski, find themselves investigating the murder of a ten-year-old boy whose burning body is found beneath the Winking Man, a desolate outcrop from which nature has carved a human face.

The body is scarred by cigarette burns, his hands tattooed and clothes scruffy—but he is wearing expensive Reebok trainers and a solid gold ring on his left hand, monogrammed AL, which belonged to the local MP who had been dead for over a year...

Who is he? And who is the mysterious old woman who watched his body burn?