It is March 2003 and the world is preparing for the invasion of Iraq when the body of a young female student is found in the grounds of Ayton University.
Detective Inspector David McClennan, sent to investigate her murder, finds himself in an unfamiliar world of students and academics, a world which contrasts starkly with the Flamingo club in the centre of town where the victim worked part-time.
As two more young women are murdered and yet others disappear, and as he himself becomes increasingly fascinated by the feminist sociologist Caroline Morland, his search for the killer becomes a race against time.