Is the young man merely drunk or does his tottering walk suggest something more sinister? When he collapses in front of two sisters on that dark, wet night, they guess rightly that he's been murdered by poisoning. So begins this tale set in the town of Banff, Scotland in the 1620s.

This historical thriller sweeps Alexander Seaton back to his roots in troublesome Ulster, and a family he might prefer never to have met.