Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.When a man is found dead in the New Forest, cold-bloodedly shot in the back as he crawled away from his killer, DI Max Angel and DS Catalina Kincade immediately know they've got something on their hands that might come back to bite them - they're looking at the handiwork of a professional, a man for whom the taking of a human life is nothing more than a job. As they dig deeper, they discover the victim was more than the out-of-work truck driver and part-time drug smuggler he appeared to be. He's been sticking his nose into the business of a man whose ruthlessness is matched only by his greed and moral corruption, trying to get to the bottom of the tragic accident that left his life in ruins and a muck-raking journalist dead. Meanwhile, the dead man's brother knows more than he's saying. Consumed by rage, he's hell-bent on avenging him in an old-fashioned, eye-for-an-eye sort of way, too blinded by grief to realise he's painting a target onto his own back at the same time as a rogue MI5 agent clears the decks. And if Angel hasn't got enough to worry about, an innocent favour asked by the forensic pathologist, Isabel Durand, reawakens memories of his darkest days in the Afghan desert, the demons he thought he'd buried forever threatening to overwhelm him just as the investigation takes a very unexpected turn . . .