When wealthy Sarah Erroll dies a violent death at her home in a posh part of Glasgow the local community is stunned by what appears to be a truly gratuitous act. Heavily pregnant with desperately wanted twins DS Alex Morrow is called in to investigate & soon discovers that there is more to Sarahs murder than it first seems. On the other side of town Thomas Anderson is called into the headmasters office at his boarding school to be told that his tyrannical father
- a banker responsible for the loss of many livelihoods in the recession
- has committed suicide by hanging himself from the old oak tree on the lawn of their home. Thomas returns to the family home to find his mother & sister in a state of numb shock. The head of the household is dead yet their initial reaction is not that of grief but relief. As Alex Morrow slowly unravels the connections between the two cases she faces her greatest challenge yet as her work & home lives collide with potentially disastrous consequences.