DCI Michael Holloway thought he had put Ash Grove behind him—the grey, brutalist housing estate where he spent his haunted childhood before it was demolished. But when a body is discovered near the old grounds, arranged in a tableau from decades past, Holloway is pulled back into a place he swore he'd never revisit.

As more victims emerge—all former residents of Ash Grove—it becomes clear the killer is building a message in blood, one murder at a time. Each scene is a twisted echo of life in the estate's final, violent years, and each clue seems unnervingly personal.

Haunted by fragmented memories and a secret he buried as a boy, Holloway must return to the heart of Manchester's forgotten slums and face the possibility that he may not just be hunting the killer—he may have inspired them. Partnered with a sharp new detective and shadowed by his daughter Eliza, a rising criminal profiler, Holloway walks a psychological tightrope between guilt and justice.

The deeper they dig, the more it becomes clear: the crimes of Ash Grove never ended—they were simply waiting to be unearthed.