Assigned to conduct surveillance over a convicted murderer just deported back to Edinburgh, Rebus finds himself in a game of cat-and-mouse with a cruelly clever criminal who turns the tables and begins to watch Rebus himself. Add to this Rebus's personal crusade against a pedophile living near a playground, a cop's suicide that may have far-reaching implications, and a high-school sweetheart whose teenage son is missing, and Rebus is in the middle of more than one deadly, dangerous mess.