In Almagen, a small village in the Andalucian mountains, Staffe nurses himself back from the brink of death. His idyllic new life in Spain appeals and Staffe is becoming a part of the community. One day his friend, Manolo, takes Staffe to visit Almeria and tells him about a body that has been found buried in an old greenhouse by the Mediterranean.
Staffe becomes inexorably drawn to the case and befriends a journalist, Raul, who presents the killing as a simple case of drug-trafficking gone wrong, but it soon emerges that this murder mirrors the methods of torture used during Spain's brutal civil war.
When Raul plunges to his death in a drunken car crash, Almagen's own secret past slowly rises to the surface, bringing with it family feuds and an expatriate menange of a famous British artist, a Vietnam War vet, and a beautiful German heiress.
