St. John's, Newfoundland, 1947. Samuel Rossiter is dead. His body is found in a laneway by a police constable late on an August Monday night. Rossiter's death appears to have been the result of an unfortunate accident. But Inspector Eric Stride of the Newfoundland Constabulary isn't convinced. And who is Samuel Rossiter? An impoverished old man living out his time in a boarding house in St. John's? Or something else? To find the answers, Stride follows a trail of evidence and circumstance that goes back more than three decades.

And at the end of that trail, he finds himself caught up in a complex story of privilege, wealth, and personal tragedy.