Description
Behind a four-inch plate glass window in the hospital wing of an uncompleted prison, a man sits in silence, his hair burned off his skull, his eyes fluttering in a dream state. His lawyer, Nick Downes, waits for his client to speak, to explain why he showed up in a brothel carrying a claw hammer, confessing to a murder in a chalk quarry in Kent. But when the dreamer awakes, Nick Downes will not get the answers he seeks. The body in the quarry was decomposed beyond all recognition, except for the bizarre object found in its gut. While forensic scientists search for clues to the dead man's identity and a beautiful prison psychiatrist tries to unlock the mystery of the defendant's tortured unconscious, another player walks into the game, a woman of extraordinary sensuality who claims to be the defendant's wife. She is Liz Turner, and Nick Downes cannot resist her. As the case of the demented killer goes to trial, Nick begins to realize that both the man he has been sworn to defend and the woman he is obsessed with have dangerous, secret identities. A web of betrayal is being spun around the barrister - and it will leave him fighting for his career, his freedom, and his life.