The Murder Trilogy - now finally complete with the novel Ghosts. He has found refuge on a deserted island in the Irish Sea. After serving time in prison for murder, he has now been pardoned after ten years. He feels condemned to freedom, forced to reconcile with himself. He is an art expert like Freddy Montgomery in The Book of Evidence and Morrow in Athena, sharing a similar biography, even though he has no name in Ghosts. He works as a ghostwriter for the once-renowned art historian Kreutznaer, who is working on a major work about a Dutch painter and lives in a gloomy house with his factotum, Lux. The delicate coexistence of the three men is thrown into chaos when a boat with extremely peculiar visitors washes up near the island. They stay for a day on the island and in the house, bringing shadows from the past.