A sunny evening, a tranquil garden - and an old man brutally gunned down on his doorstep.

In the pretty and tranquil market town of Kirkluce, a proposed superstore development has divided the population in an increasingly bitter war. The low-level aggression of bored youth that is generally tolerated has become sinister. The bloodied carcass of a sheep abandoned in the streets is more than just unpleasant vandalism and teenage bikers, terrorising a woman to breaking point, are impossible to control.

When a second victim is killed in what seems a random shooting, the fear in the town becomes tangible. DI Fleming will not accept that the crimes are motiveless, but she struggles to make sense of the two murders, when nothing makes sense any more and no one will believe anything. Not even the truth.