Perth, Western Australia, is the world's most isolated capital city. But even in sleepy Perth a serial killer is at work, striking seemingly at will and with impunity. Detective Superintendent Jack Sargent is gradually drawn further and further into the nightmare of successive murders. The killer's ultimate objective soon becomes shockingly clear. And it becomes clear that Sargent and the killer are linked by a 17thC English diarist, Samuel Pepys. The key to the unfolding mayhem is Pepys' diary entries more than three centuries earlier. Sargent can't extricate himself from the killer's inexorable progress, nor can he keep his disabled son from being dragged along with him. The killer is always one step ahead of Sargent and his team of WA Police, taunting Sargent, mocking the inability of the police to prevent further murders. The outcome seems inevitable. Sargent and his son are in the killer's sights.