When Sonia Varika, a former actress who takes solace in alcohol and isolation, is pulled from the fire, her body is burned almost beyond recognition. The house, which she shared with a small family of African refugees, is entirely destroyed, and she is the only survivor.
For her ex-lovers, Police Colonel Chronis Halkidis and Simeon Piertzovanis, the landlord of the gutted property, her fate is a heavy reckoning. Reflection gives way to guilt, and then to a fanatical desire to uncover the truth behind the blaze and hold those responsible to account – by any means necessary.
With corruption rife in his own the force, Halkidis soon finds his investigation shackled from within. Fuelled by their need for revenge, and by their twin addictions to cocaine and alcohol, Halkidis and Piertzovanis must themselves resort increasingly to violence if they are to unmask a conspiracy that unites church and state against the interests of justice.
A classic noir thriller, Ashes is unflinching in its examination of the violence and extortion bred by corruption, but at the same time tender in its treatment of human weakness, of guilt, addiction, nostalgia, regret.
