A brutal murder, a complex investigation, a safe conviction. Or so everyone thinks until D.C.I. Mowbray hears the condemned man’s last words just before he is hanged.

Now he needs Dr Jack Cuthbert to reopen the forensic investigation and prove that they have not been responsible for a tragic miscarriage of justice. But months after the crime, with no new evidence and both the victim and the killer now in their graves, where can the pathologist begin?

Cuthbert had already worked hard on the case and is ninety-nine per cent sure he was right. But what about that last one percent? Might the unthinkable be true? Have they hanged the wrong man?

It is now up to the pathologist to uncover the real truth.