When the decaying body of a murdered woman is discovered in a suburban house, DI Wesley Peterson has problems establishing her identity. But as he digs deeper, he has another more disturbing case to investigate - the naked bodies of two teenagers have been found with shotgun wounds at the foot of a cliff. Both cases become stranger when Wesley realises they are linked to a sinister manhunt, mirroring events from the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Then a skeleton is found near the place where the teenagers were last seen alive and Wesley finally has to face a terrible truth ... and a hunt to the death.