On a rocky beach in the southwest of Ireland, the body of Jimmy O'Reilly, sixty-nine years old and dressed in a suit and his dancing shoes, is propped on a boulder, staring sightlessly out to sea. A cryptic message is spelled out next to the body with sixty-nine polished black stones and a discarded vial of deadly veterinarian medication lies nearby. Jimmy was a wealthy racehorse owner, known far and wide as The Dancing Man. In a town like Dingle, everyone knows a little something about everyone else. But dig a bit deeper, and there's always much more to find. And when Detective Inspector Cormac O'Brien is dispatched out of Killarney to lead the murder inquiry, he's determined to unearth every last buried secret.

Dimpna Wilde hasn't been home in years. As picturesque as Dingle may be for tourists in search of their roots and the perfect jumper, to her it means family drama and personal complications. In fairness, Dublin hasn't worked out quite as she hoped either. Faced with a triple bombshell--her mother rumored to be in a relationship with Jimmy, her father's dementia is escalating, and her brother is avoiding her calls--Dimpna moves back to clear her family of suspicion.

Despite plenty of other suspects, the guards are crawling over the Wildes. But the horse business can be a brutal one, and as Dimpna becomes more involved with her old acquaintances and haunts, the depth of lingering grudges becomes clear. Theft, extortion, jealousy and greed. As Dimpna takes over the family practice, she's in a race with the detective inspector to uncover the dark, twisting truth, no matter how close to home it strikes...