The first case of Inspector Tess Fox in Brighton’s criminal police could turn out to be a failure due to mysterious circumstances: a man with a severed throat falls from the balcony of a locked-from-the-inside apartment. Even more, the dead man was her old acquaintance—someone Tess had been trying to forget. The situation is complicated by the fact that her stepsister, Sara, a notorious scammer, was connected to him. Suspicion falls on Sara, and Tess risks her reputation, because she too has her own secrets.