Early one morning in the seaside resort of Whitley Bay, the lifeless body of a young girl, Sophie Washington, is found brutally murdered -- her face mutilated beyond recognition

DI Jack Brady, recovering from a vicious shooting incident, is on the edge. Struggling with his marriage break-up and his tortured past, his problems intensify when friend and colleague DI James Matthews confidentially reveals that he was with the victim the night of her murder.

Brady's loyal deputy, the clean-cut Detective Sergeant Harry Conrad and police psychologist Dr Amelia Jenkins are assigned with Brady to solve the victim's murder. But the investigation becomes increasingly compromised as Brady realises that Matthews is holding something back.

As Brady delves ever deeper into Sophie's life, he comes to realise that the three men who should have protected her during her short life are the chief suspects in her murder: her teacher, her step-father and a police detective.