In Broken Harbour, a ghost estate outside Dublin - half-built, half-inhabited, h
alf-abandoned - two children and their father are dead. The mother is on her way
to intensive care. Scorcher Kennedy is given the case because he is the Murder
squad's star detective.
At first he and his rookie partner, Richie, think thi
s is a simple one: Pat Spain was a casualty of the recession, so he killed his c
hildren, tried to kill his wife Jenny, and finished off with himself. But there
are too many inexplicable details and the evidence is pointing in two directions
at once. Scorcher's personal life is tugging for his attention.
Seeing the c
ase on the news has sent his sister Dina off the rails again, and she's resurrec
ting something that Scorcher thought he had tightly under control: what happened
to their family, one summer at Broken Harbour, back when they were children. Th
e neat compartments of his life are breaking down, and the sudden tangle of work
and family is putting both at risk ...
