Five years ago, a mysterious fire burned Edinburgh's seedy Central Hotel to ashes. Long-forgotten and unsolved, the case reappears when a charred body—with a bullet in its head—is found amongst the ruins. Inspector John Rebus knows that his superiors would rather he let sleeping dogs lie. He knows that part of the answer lies somewhere within a cryptic black notebook. And he knows that to solve the case, he'll have to peel back layer upon layer of unspeakable secrets to arrive at the truth...