In a spectacular storm, homicide cop Gregory Samsa's car skids across a flooded field and overturns. Gregory Samsa survives. His passenger doesn't. But instead of reporting the accident, in a frenzied panic Samsa drags his passenger to a lonely place and buries her. He has his reputation to think about, his career, his daughter. So when he does report the incident he leaves out one important detail - the death of the thirteen-year-old hooker, Almond, who had been riding in his car. This one moment of weakness, a moral blackout, draws Samsa into a downward spiral of deception, fear and violence. For when Almond's body is discovered by chance, the shadowy figure of Lee Boyle emerges from the underworld. Cunning, vicious and predatory, Boyle is on the trail of Almond's killer - it's payback time - and that trail is leading him to the very cop investigating her death.