In North Devon, where the rivers Taw and Torridge meet, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the chapel as his father’s funeral takes place. The day Matthew left the strict evangelical community in which he grew up, he lost his family too.

Now he’s back, not just to mourn his father at a distance, but to take charge of his first major case in the Two Rivers region; a complex case not quite as idyllic as tourists suppose.

A body has been found on the beach: a man with the tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. Finding the killer is Venn’s only focus, and the investigation will take him back into the community he left behind, and the deadly secrets that lurk there.