<blockquote> <p>At the start of a new century, in a war far away from England, two British soldiers see a golden opportunity . . . and do the unthinkable to take advantage of it. </p> </blockquote> <p>Twenty years later, a successful though much despised London businessman is found savagely and bizarrely murdered in a medieval tithe barn on his estate in Somerset. For Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge, a man still shaken by the Great War's deafening echoes, the well-concealed trail he must now follow is leading back to an event so monumentally barbarous that its consequences envelop even the innocent. And when justice takes a malevolent turn, one haunted policeman must stand alone against the onrushing tide.</p>