The small mining town of Burrthorpe is economically depressed and mistrustful of strangers-and cops. The return of handsome and volatile Colin Farr, whose dead father was once implicated in a child murder case, seems to dig up all the old troubles and bring on some new ones. Farr flirts dangerously with Ellie Pascoe and quickly becomes a suspect himself, in the murder of his nemesis. It is this latest event that brings out Andy Dalziel, just the man to help Pascoe out of the dark tunnels of the case.