No one liked Jake Kinsey. A rich man, he turned up out of nowhere, acquired Exmouth s trophy penthouse flat, and then bought his way into the local rowing club. And now, after a long fall from his balcony, he s dead.

DS Jimmy Suttle, a newcomer to the Devon and Cornwall force, is the one detective who suspects that Kinsey has been killed – but there is very little evidence.

Left to work alone, Jimmy is all too conscious that time, the pressure of the job, and the wreckage of his private life are lengthening the odds against any kind of result. And with a wife embittered by the move to a remote country cottage, Suttle must gamble his own integrity against the mounting chaos of the lives around him.