With Christmas just around the corner, Thomas Pitt's sister-in-law, Emily Radley, is suddenly called from London to be with her dying aunt. Leaving her husband and two children behind, Emily makes the long journey to an all-but-forgotten town in the county of Connemara, on the western coast of Ireland. She soon discovers that a tragic legacy haunts the once close-knit community.

"When Thomas Pitt is tasked with playing bodyguard to Sofia Delacruz, a young and controversial British preacher who has been living in Spain and has returned to England on a mysterious errand, he thinks it's a waste of Special Branch's time and resources. But when kidnappers manage to reach Sofia murdering two of her companions in the process. Pitt learns that the message the lovely evangelist was meant to deliver was far more urgent than he knew....