After a relatively quiet few months, an outbreak of serious headline-grabbing crimes confronts Inspector King and his team of detectives. Their investigations start with people trafficking on a South Devon beach, followed by a spate of armed robberies.

The pressure on the team quickly intensifies when the suspected suicide of a man found hanging in Plymbridge Woods is not initially what it seems. King must determine if it was assisted suicide or something more sinister.

Another man's body is soon discovered in his car at a boatyard where he worked: it quickly becomes clear he was drugged and murdered. Is there a link between the deaths of these men and their previous Army service in Iraq?

King becomes increasingly concerned that he may be hunting a serial killer who must be stopped before he kills again.