Christmas 1939. In Europe the Phoney War hides carnage to come. In
Ireland Detective Inspector Stefan Gillespie keeps tabs on Irishmen
joining the British Forces. It's unpleasant work, but when an IRA raid
on a military arsenal sends Garda Special Branch in search of guns and
explosives, Stefan is soon convinced his boss, Superintendent Terry
Gregory, is working for the IRA.
At home for Christmas, Stefan is abruptly called to Laragh, an isolated
mountain town. A postman has disappeared, believed killed, and Laragh's
Guards are hiding something. Stefan is the nearest Special Branch
detective, yet is he only there because Gregory wants him out of the
way?
Laragh is close to the lake where Stefan's wife Maeve drowned years
earlier, and when events expose a connection between the missing postman
and her death, Stefan realises it wasn't an accident, but murder. And it
will be a difficult, dangerous journey where Stefan has to finally
confront the ghosts of the past not only in the mountains of Wicklow,
but in Spain in the aftermath of its bloody Civil War, before he can
return to Dublin to find the truth.