Hopetoun, Western Australia: In the nickel mining boomtown, a headless human torso washes ashore. This presents an opportunity for the disgraced former poster boy Cato Kwong to prove himself. The police officer of Chinese descent wants to escape the post to which he has been forcibly reassigned. After the head belonging to the torso is found, the police know that the deceased is Chinese, and a miner confesses to murdering his colleague, but the confession seems to have been bought. Is a known drug dealer behind the crimes? Meanwhile, former British detective Stuart Miller is searching for a man who murdered his own family in England 30 years ago and now appears to have surfaced in Australia. As more police officers turn up dead, Cato realizes that he has stirred up the criminal underbelly of the town.