Former detective Maggie D'arcy is vacationing on a remote West Cork peninsula with her boyfriend and her teenage daughter Lilly, but the mood is darkened when human remains wash up below the cliffs. Some locals think that this Polish construction worker committed suicide, but as Maggie explores the nearby village and learns of a famous Irish painter who died under mysterious circumstances, she believes there's something else going on. Then Lilly starts dating one of the dead man's friends, and in this third outing (following A Distant Grave), Maggie has worries much closer to home.