
This is the first in a series of police procedurals set in North-East Scotland and featuring DCI Jack Carston. A woman’s body is found at her home. She died of a gunshot wound, had been brutally raped and all the clues point to the husband being the culprit. As Carston investigates, however, the main puzzle facing him is who the woman really was. Husband, colleagues and acquaintances variously picture her as a frigid menopausal woman, a highly-sexed lover, a shrewd investor and manipulator, a valued financial adviser, an embarrassment to her employers, a sad, unstable person. Before he can solve the crime, he must first reconcile all these images to establish her real identity.