Undercover investigator Art Marvik is tasked to find the truth behind a fifty year old mystery but as he unravels its dark and dangerous secrets someone is determined to stop him from ever revealing them. Marvik is detailed by his boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Crowder of the UK's National Intelligent Marine Squad, to attend the funeral of Bradley Pulford, whose body has been washed up on an Isle of Wight beach - Pulford had officially been declared dead fifty-five years earlier. So who is the imposter and why did he assume the name of a dead man? What's more, why did he suddenly show up in the Dorset coastal town of Swanage in 1989, hook up with a local fishing family, the Killbecks, and after fathering a child with Stacey Killbeck, disappear in 1990? When an innocent woman is killed during the course of the investigation, Marvik realizes that the stakes are much higher than he'd previously thought. As he begins to uncover a trail of deceit, corruption and murder that spans over half a century, Marvik must confront a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to make sure that his dangerous cargo of sins of the past stay in the past.