When DCI Neil Paget and DS Tregalles investigate an apparently standard missing person case, it soon emerges that Mark Newman, an aspiring journalist, was on the trail of a hot story, and now he’s disappeared, along with every scrap of potential evidence.

But as bodies start to pile up, Paget is struggling to keep his mind on the job, given the erratic behaviour and unexplained absences of his new live-in lover . . .