I’ve witnessed many sordid things in my life. As a stenographer at the Criminal Courts of Justice, I thought I’d seen how low a human being might stoop. But one week into O Malley v O Malley and I’d decided there was nothing uglier than a bitter break-up.

Stenographer Beatrice Barrington is back and working in the family law courts in Dublin when a friend seeks her help. Georgina O Donnell s husband, Andrew Dalton, has been murdered and the gardai are keeping her in the dark. Georgina thinks Beatrice might be able to find some answers through her friend, retired detective Gabriel Ingram.

There has been a rift between Beatrice and Gabriel, but she agrees to do what she can. She contacts him and discovers he now has a lodger in Number 9, Oxmantown Road a young woman with her own secrets.

Together Beatrice and Gabriel begin to uncover Andrew Dalton’s past. Then a stranger who says he is an old friend of Andrew s appears and claims that the dead man owed him money. The pressure becomes too much for Georgina, and Beatrice finds herself trying to protect her friend and her family.

But who is she protecting them from?