<B>When an old man is murdered at a Scottish nature reserve, DI Jim Carruthers investigates a web of deadly secrets reaching decades into the past.</B><BR /> &#160;<BR /> While struggling to help his grieving colleague, Sergeant Andrea Fletcher, Detective Inspector Jim Carruthers is thrown into another troubling murder case. The body of an old man was discovered&#160;stabbed to death in a nature reserve&mdash;a ball of cloth rammed into the back of his throat. The only suspect is a local fifteen-year-old known for antisocial behavior. But the teenager has an alibi.&#160;<BR /><BR /> When a second elderly man&#160;is murdered in the same fashion at the same locale, Carruthers suspects it&rsquo;s the work of a serial killer. But when revelations about the first victim send Carruthers to Iceland to interview the man&rsquo;s estranged son, the case becomes truly baffling.<BR /><BR /> The seemingly disconnected threads of investigation include the decades-old disappearance of a twelve-year-old boy, the brutal murder of a former journalist, and a bitter local dispute about a nature reserve. And when Carruthers and Fletcher put the pieces together, they will lead them straight into a killer&rsquo;s path.