Scotland Yard Superintendent Perry Trethowan is enjoying a vacation evening at a cosy Yorkshire pub when an old woman shows him an original, unpublished Bronte manuscript. Trethowan agrees to engage in a little literary detective work, but he doesn’t realise that for a criminal the manuscript is motive for theft, torture - and murder.
The first message sent to Tom Thorne's phone was just a picture - the blurred image of a man's face, but Thorne had seen enough dead bodies to know that the man was no longer alive. But who was he? Who sent the photograph? And why? While the technical experts attempt to trace the sender, Thorne searches the bulletins for a reported death that matches the photograph. Then another picture arrives.