Hull private investigator Leo Rivers finds himself in a battle to keep tabloid sensationalism out of his quest for the truth behind the savage murder of a young prostitute. Investigating one death in a sequence of similar killings, Rivers is brought into conflict with an ambitious chief-of-police set on as much personal gain as possible from the search for Hull's first modern serial killer. Set against a backdrop of the Humber river and the gradual destruction of the fishing industry, Rivers is drawn into a world of exploitation, ambition, vanity and violence in this final volume of a trilogy of outstanding contemporary noir.