The Great War never relinquished its hold on Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge leaving him haunted and isolated unable to forget In the spring of hes dispatched to Berkshire to find a missing man whose war work is so secret even Rutledge cannot know its true nature Meanwhile miles away an unidentified body has been discovered in the ruins of a Yorkshire abbey clothed in a monks robe and wearing a gas maskIn the shadow of a great white horse cut into the chalk hillsidewhere cottages once built to house the sick and untouchable now shelter outcasts like himselfRutledge must extract a terrible truth from those who hide from the past For death is never quite finished with anyone least of all the men who fought in the bloody trenches of France
