Welcome to Spent - an isolated and rather odd town somewhere in the North. Its singular inhabitants lead blackly comic lives, from Dr Chinnery, the lethally incompetent vet to Pauline, the monstrous Restart Officer at the Job Centre.
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.