When rookie Garda Tim O'Driscoll is assigned to inform next-of-kin of the death of a local musician, he smells a rat. The man's fall from the battlements of a renovated Norman castle in County Limerick seems to suggest accident or suicide. But Tim has acquired troubling information on the internal tensions within the folk-rock band who were employing him there at a recording session. Since the death occurred in a different district, Tim has to use all the means at his disposal (including family connections) to nose in on the investigation. Few of those involved are completely above suspicion: the drunken, hot-headed guitarist replaced for his unreliability ... the enigmatic blind producer ... the glamorous lead singer ... her lover ... a dodgy archaeologist ... The possibility of mistaken identity casts suspicion on a local environmental group. In the end, Tim breaks through a web of multiple deceit to get at the truth - and to save the life of someone who unknowingly holds the key to the mystery.