Kinsale, Ireland, in a future time is emerging from the rigors of climate change when a beautiful girl is found stabbed and washed up in Scilly near Bob Foley’s family home, Sham Rock. Bob is a retired US Navy commander whose old friend, Declan McGuinness of the Gardai, is assigned to investigate the murder.

Inspector McGuinness’s search takes him to the yacht of a billionaire, Conrad Mercer, who found a way to take advantage of climate change. He employs Meatface Henson as his security officer and fixer, a man with a drugs record and, as it turns out, a strange interest in the ancestry of Bob Foley. McGuinness is assisted by Garda Brenda Flaherty, who holds Mercer and Henson responsible for the death of her Army Ranger husband years earlier. She agrees to go undercover to gather evidence, barely escaping a dangerous encounter.

The adventure takes Declan and Brenda to the Libyan desert, following the kidnapping and strange rescue of Bob Foley’s son, and eventually to France where the international chase continues. Finally, a double engagement in Kinsale and a strange twist on the ancestry of Declan’s old friend ends the story.