A boy has been crucified in Galway city. People are shocked; the broadsheets debate how the brutal death reflects the state of the nation; the Irish Church is scandalized. No further action is taken. Then the sister of the murdered boy is burned alive and PI Jack Taylor decides to take matters into his own hands. Taylors investigations take him to old city haunts where he encounters ghosts - living and dead. But what he eventually finds surpasses even his darkest imaginings.