At a private school in the suburbs of Edinburgh, a former military officer shot and killed two teenagers, and then committed suicide. According to Inspector Rebus, there is only one thing unclear about this crime its cause. But the search for motives leads the detective much further than he expected .. The inspector is literally obsessed with the mysterious identity of the criminal . From now on, he is his executor, designed to understand the tangle of secrets that shroud the past of a suicide. Meanwhile, clouds are gathering over Rebus . The bastard who was stalking his partner burned alive in his own house . And Rebus himself came out of the hospital with burns on his hands .