John's words come back to haunt him, while his brother abducts drug dealer Darryl Christie and recruits ex-army comrades for a risky raid. John hears his paralysed former partner's confession.
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.