A new case for Cormoran Strike. When the novelist Owen Quine disappears without a trace, his wife asks private investigator Cormoran Strike for help. This is not the first time Quine has gone off the grid for a few days, and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. However, at the beginning of his investigation, Strike realizes that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife suspects. The writer has just completed a manuscript that contains sharp-tongued portraits of nearly everyone in his circle. If the book were to be published, it would ruin the lives of numerous people, who would have every reason to silence Quine. When Quine is indeed found dead, brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, a race against time begins to uncover the true motive of the ruthless killer.