Publisher's Synopsis
Police Sergeant William South has a reason for not wanting to be on the murder investigation: he is a murderer himself. But the victim was his only friend; like him, a passionate birdwatcher. South and his new partner find the body, violently beaten, forced inside a wooden chest. Only rage could kill a man like this; South knows it. Soon - too soon - they find a suspect: Donnie Fraser, a drifter from Northern Ireland. His presence in Kent disturbs William, because he knew him as a boy. If the past is catching up with him, South wants to meet it head on. For even as he desperately investigates the connections, he knows there is no crime, however duplicitous or cruel, that can compare to the great lie of his childhood.
