It is December 1913 and Detective Constable Frank Bolam has a murder to
solve. The victim is found drowned in the River Wear with a vicious
knife wound to his lower back. There are no witnesses and no clues. A
few months later another body is found with the same vicious knife
wound, followed closely by a further two murders with the victims
stabbed in a similar manner. This is a clever killer. No clues are found
and Bolam cannot find a way to break the deadlock in his most perplexing
case. Having risen from a lowly mining family, Bolam has strong moral
values and becomes totally obsessed with the killer and the devastating
sadness brought to the victims' relatives. He vows to bring the murderer
to justice, whatever the cost. These are turbulent times, with the
country in the middle of an attritional war. In his quest to find the
murderer, Bolam follows his hunch and enlists in the army, heading for
the trenches to track down a cold-blooded killer in the middle of the
most mechanised slaughter the world has known.