When the body of Thomas Magner's business partner is found dead in his car on the outskirts of Anstruther, all evidence points to suicide. And Magner himself, a wealthy property developer, is currently under investigation for a series of alleged rapes from thirty years ago.
In total fifteen women are prepared to go to court to testify against Magner but one by one they inexplicably withdraw their complaints until only five remain. With the CPS now reconsidering its case, one of Magner's accusers is killed in a hit-and-run – and the abandoned car is found to be registered to one T Magner.
DCI Andy Gilchrist is assigned to the hit-and-run case and soon discovers that Magner's murky past is very much seeping into the present. How did he acquire his wealth? How his first wife die? And why did his business partner commit suicide?
And was Magner a serial rapist in his youth? Or was he something far worse?
Praise for T.F. Muir:
'Rebus did it for Edinburgh. Laidlaw did it for Glasgow. Gilchrist might just be the bloke to put St Andrews on the crime fiction map.' Daily Record
'A bright new recruit to the swelling army of Scots crime writers.' Quintin Jardine
'Gripping and grisly, with plenty of twists and turns that race along with black humour.' Craig Robertson
'Gilchrist is intriguing, bleak and vulnerable... if I were living in St Andrews I'd sleep with the lights on.' Anna Smith