Hard-up Michael Rebus' rash act in Fife has bloody consequences for his brother John facing a fatal confrontation. Meanwhile, Siobhan finds out who stopped the street attack, and John confesses to contact with criminal Cafferty.
40-year-old Inspector John Rebus is at a psychological crossroads following an altercation with an infamous Edinburgh gangster. At odds with a job increasingly driven by technocrats, involved in a toxic affair he knows he needs to end, and all but supplanted in his daughter's life by his ex-wife's wealthy new husband, Rebus begins to wonder if he still has a role to play - either as a family man or a police officer.