When a murder suspect broke her back across a brick wall, Alisha Barba's dreams of being a detective were shattered. Now on her feet again, but with her career and private life in limbo, she receives a message from an old schoolfriend Cate, who is eight months pregnant and in trouble.
On the night they arrange to meet, Cate is mown down by a car that kills her husband instantly. As paramedics fight to save her life they uncover the first in a series of haunting and elaborate deceptions. This is the trigger for a dangerous quest that will take Alisha from the East End of London to Amsterdam's red-light district and into a murky underworld of sex trafficking, slavery and exploitation that stretches from the desolate hillsides of Afghanistan to the comfortable middle-class suburbs of London.
As the shadows across her landscape deepen, Alisha and her old boss, Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz, must confront their own prejudices and will come to question the very laws they have sworn to uphold.