On secondment to Spain, British detective, Michael Fernandez, encounters a part of his family he has never met and discovers he has inherited a house in Parcent, the village that shunned his father in 1951 when he was diagnosed with leprosy. That is why Michael hates Spain and has never set foot in his father's homeland.

Now he is offered a permanent job as a Captain in the Spanish Guardia Civil. Despite misgivings, he accepts and his first investigation thrusts him into the murky world of greedy developers and corrupt politicians eager to exploit the burgeoning property market in the Costa Blanca.

Unprepared for Spanish conventions, he becomes embroiled in a web of lies and deceit as he seeks to unravel the disappearance of a local boy and the murder of a local Mayor. Out of his depth and shocked at the extent of perversion and depravity he encounters, he is drawn into a mire of immorality that threatens to overwhelm his resolve.

Meanwhile, in Parcent, the tentacles of small village life engulf him in an irresistible intrigue and a mystery that has its roots in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.