By a freak chance John Kelly, once a reporter, always a maverick, becomes embroiled in the mystery surrounding a series of disturbing deaths at a tough Dartmoor army training camp. Several young men and women stationed at the bleakly remote Hangridge have died suddenly and tragically, mostly from gunshot wounds that the army claim have been self-inflicted. The army has a plausible explanation for each death individually, but when put together these explanations look very suspicious indeed-Kelly takes his concerns to his old friend Detective Superintendent Karen Meadows and together they attempt to break through the wall of secrecy which the army has erected. Their involvement in what they come to believe is a major conspiracy, coupled with upheaval and tragedy in their own personal lives, brings them closer together then ever before. But their past histories threaten to jeopardise any possibility of a real relationship between them and Karen, still fighting to move on from her traumatic love affair with a married detective sergeant, buries herself in her work, whilst Kelly pursues the truth at considerable risk to himself.