In Children of the Mist, the two detectives Thane and Moss are sent from Glasgow's tough Millside division with its tenement back streets to the unfamiliar cattle country of northeast Scotland to investigate a county inspector's alieged crime. Who had shot the Marquis of Braedale, a magnificent pedigree Aberdeen Angus bull? Everything points to the county inspector - including his hatred of the Marquis's owner, a Scottish Home Rule fanatic and leader of the Children of the Mist, a group dedicated to that sole aim. But soon Colin Thane begins to wonder - and he and Moss are plunged into a web of murder and intrigue, with each new turn of escalating violence bringing them back to the Marquis's death.