In a near-future Scotland, cut off from the rest of the UK
by catastrophic flooding, crime is everywhere and everyone is a criminal.

Corsa Moran is different. Righteous, stubborn, unshakable. Fearless of method and foul of mouth. A brilliant detective
who refuses to turn away from lies and injustice.

But then, in an instant, everything Corsa cares about
is taken away.

Weakened by unbearable personal pain,
she is pushed to accept an official explanation for the tragedy. And in a world where society is barely keeping its head above water, you don’t question authority. You don’t break ranks. You don’t bend the rules.

But Corsa can’t let go. And the more they try to silence her, the deeper she dives, dredging up the sinister truth beneath the drowning world of New Dumfries.

Britain has been ravaged by disastrous flooding, with survivors from the major cities forced to higher ground, north of the border.

When the body of a young refugee is discovered at an
abandoned transit camp, Detective Corsa Moran is baffled.

In a harsh surveillance society, where everyone is registered and monitored, why can the victim not be identified? And why does such a well-dressed body bear the scars of poverty and violence?

Facing indifference and hostility at work, and deepening crises in her personal life, Corsa seeks answers in The Tail, a depraved and lawless New Dumfries ghetto, where she enters the radar of a dangerous and powerful new enemy.

As Corsa shines her searchlight on the dark forces behind this brutal new world, she is warned that to go further could put her career in jeopardy and her life in danger. But Corsa Moran does not know how to stop.

Detective Corsa Moran is in crisis. Crippled with guilt over her sister’s suffering, she learns her husband David has been arrested, accused of being an illegal migrant from the flooded south.

With David in the clutches of a brutal government agency, Corsa
is offered a deal: he will be freed if she’ll travel to Alba, the occupied badlands in the north of Scotland, to investigate the disappearance of three civilian contractors.

But Corsa suspects the case is an excuse to embed her inside Alba to tackle local corruption, at great personal risk. And as she closes in on the terrible truth behind the missing men, she meets a renegade politician who presents her with an agonising dilemma…

Accept her role as the pawn in a fiendish political power play, and win her husband’s liberty. Or fight back, exposing the corruption and vice behind the regime, risking her own happiness, and possibly her life.

Detective Corsa Moran has a problem. Nearly a thousand people trapped in a forty-storey block of flats - a Stack - and a murderer on the loose.

Outside, the area is under the hammer of a hurricane, and flood waters have engulfed the building and much of the city.

In the Stack basement, Corsa stands over a dead body. How did he get here? Who killed him? Why here? Why now? Could the victim’s identity hint at a personal connection for Corsa? The more she uncovers, the more questions emerge.

And then the lights go out, and Corsa must battle internal bureaucracy, physical and mental damage, and a treacherous, claustrophobic environment as she hunts down a ruthless killer way too close to home.