In a wrecked Croat village, a mass grave is uncovered and the mutilated body of a young Englishwoman, Dorrie Mowat, is exhumed. Her mother, who loathed Dorrie in life, becomes obsessed by the need to find out about her death. But with civil war tearing apart the former Yugoslavia, none of the authorities there or in Britain are interested in a ‘minor’ war crime. So she turns to Bill Penn, private investigator, MI5 reject. For him this looks like a quick trip to safe Zagreb, the writing of a useless report and a good fee at the end of it. But once there he finds himself drawn inexorably towards the killing ground behind the lines, to find the truth of the young woman’s death and, perhaps, the truth of himself. Penn’s search for evidence that could, one day, convict a war criminal in a court of law becomes an epic journey into a merciless war where the odds are stacked high against him
