(An earlier Rebus book than The Hanging Garden or The Naming of the Dead.)

A brutally murdered man has ties to Protestant loyalist para­mil­i­taries in Northern Ireland. He also happens to be the un­ac­knowl­edged son of Rebus’s old nemesis, Big Ger Cafferty, who wants revenge. Never a team player, Rebus goes his own way, solving the case against the backdrop of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and a socially deprived housing scheme.