Matthew Hall

Dr Leo Black is one of Oxford University's rising stars. His lectures play to a packed audience of adoring students. He seems destined for tenure amongst the gleaming spires. But Worcester College has never employed a man like Leo Black before. For twenty years Leo served the SAS with distinction. And when the friend he served alongside is killed in Paris trying to prevent the abduction of a young British scientist, the world Leo has tried to put behind him begins to reel him back in.

The body of a dead man is discovered in a cemetery in Bristol, the sign of the cross gouged into his flesh. At first it seems to coroner Jenny Cooper that it's suicide. Then a young priest arrives, entreating Jenny to hold an inquest into the death of Eva Donaldson, a political campaigner whose past life continued to haunt her.