When a wealthy banker's daughter goes missing from Edinburgh University, Detective Inspector John Rebus has little to go on in his investigations. It's difficult to know whether she's dead or alive, whether she has been kidnapped or is simply on the run. Before long, however, Rebus has a hunch that there is more to this missing person's report than meets the eye. His first clue is found in the student's home village: it is a carved wooden doll lain inside a six-inch coffin.
Jonathan Hughes, an anthropologist specialising in social stereotyping, is determined to re-examine this case. There were alarming disparities in the evidence and Hughes has little doubt that there has been a terrible miscarriage of justice. But there is also something else pushing this half-Iranian, half-Libyan outsider to reach for the truth . . . This is more than a mere expose of corruption, it is a dark tale of solitude...