When Aisling Conroy's boyfriend Jack is found in the freezing black waters of the river Corrib, the police tell her it was suicide. Then Jack's sister Maude shows up, suspecting foul play, and determined to prove it. Cormac Reilly is the detective assigned with the re-investigation of a seemingly accidental overdose twenty years ago-- the overdose of Jack and Maude's drug and alcohol addled mother, Hilaria Blake. Now he is under increasing pressure to charge Maude for murder, and is drawn into a history of corruption, desperation, and crime run rife.-- adapted from back cover