Freshly promoted to the elite Major Crimes Team, DI Joe Faraday is thrown into the deep end with the investigation into the murder of prison officer Paul Coughlin. Was the violent Coughlin killed by a recently released con he brutalised in prison? Or is his death a legacy of a wider, more savage violence from twenty years before? Coughlin was an ex-petty officer in the Royal Navy. Not much liked, he served on HMS Accolade, a Type 21 frigate sunk during the Falklands war with the loss of 19 men. If Faraday is to solve the murder, he must first penetrate the wall of silence thrown up by the Navy. But as he digs deeper, he uncovers a disturbing connection to a crime that has waited twenty years to be avenged ...