"Being on the Murder Squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed it would be. Her partner, Stephen Moran, is the only person who seems glad she's there. The rest of her working life is a stream of thankless cases, vicious pranks, and harassment. Antoinette is savagely tough, but she's getting close to the breaking point. Their new case looks like yet another by-the-numbers lovers' quarrel gone bad. Aislinn Murray is blond, pretty, groomed...

Planning to run away with his girlfriend to London in the hopes of escaping poverty, Frank concludes he has been dumped when Rosie fails to join him and is astonished when Rosie's suitcase and evidence of foul play are discovered more than twenty years later.

In 1950s Dublin, renowned pathologist Dr. Quirke and DI John Strafford investigate the murder of a young history scholar with the help of her journalist sister, and as they close in on the killer, their personal lives put the case, and the lives of everyone involved, in danger.

When the body of his daughter's friend is brought to his autopsy table in 1950s Ireland, Quirke, refusing to play by the Catholic Church's rules, investigates the boy's murder and discovers just how far the Church and its supporters will go to protect their own interests.