On a frosty winter's morning, DI John Rebus and a group of colleagues are in the company of an expert archaeologist on a tour of Queensbury House - an ex-hospital about to house Her Majesty's parliament in Scotland - when they stumble across a mummified body secreted behind a wall. Later that same day, a tramp jumps off the North Bridge though the glass roof of Waverly Station, a not unusual occurrence except that 'Supertramp' had in his possession a building society passbook with a balance of over #400,000 in it. The two cases seem unconnected until a third death - of a high-profile prospective Member of the Scottish Parliament - is discovered in Queensbury House's disused summer-house. As Rebus and his hand-picked crew dig up secrets twenty years buried, it begins to look as if Scotland's second attempt at devolution though more successful will be just as dirty...