Roy Grace is about to find out just how dangerous a dead man can be . . .

Arriving late for a funeral, James Taylor spots a familiar face in the church – his old schoolfriend Rufus Rorke. Except it couldn’t be him, could it? Because two years ago Taylor attended Rufus’s funeral. He even delivered the eulogy.

On the other side of Brighton, at Police HQ, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace has been alerted to a number of suspicious deaths that he can’t get out of his mind. But how are they linked? And could they possibly be connected to Rufus Rorke?