Returning to Dublin from narcotics work in Spain and Portugal, Detective Inspector Mike Mulchay is instantly called to the hospital where the victim of a nasty sexual assault is being tended to - and she happens to be the daughter of a high-ranking politician. Jesica didn't see much of her attacker, and is hardly able to speak of it, but she remembers that he made the sign of the cross over her before he left her, bloody and violated. Mulchay discovers similarities in other attacks involving a gold cross of some kind, taken from the victims of the attacks. What strange religious fascination does the attacker have?