A cold spring morning in the County of Cork, two fishermen find a pile of black feathers floating in the Blackwater River. It is the swollen body of Father Hini, a former music teacher at the local boys' school. His hands and feet are tied, and there are signs of strangulation marks on his neck from wire. The worst part is that he has been castrated.

This case shakes the community, and Detective Katie McGuire faces intense pressure to close it quickly. But then another murdered priest is discovered, with a beaten and bruised body and limbs tightly bound... and the same brutal wound hidden beneath his robe.

Katie uncovers evidence of a horrific cover-up related to the St. Joseph's Orphanage. However, her colleagues in the Garda, the Irish police, fear that if they dig too deep, they will provoke the wrath of the Catholic hierarchy. If Katie wants to catch the killer before he strikes again, she will have to confront the church hierarchy alone and penetrate a wall of silence that has hidden a shockingly terrible secret for decades.

A secret that is, literally, beyond imagination.