Paddy Meehan

Paddy Meehan has just started work on the Scottish Daily News when a toddler is abducted. Two eleven-year-old boys are arrested for his murder and Paddy is shocked to discover that one of them is her fiance's cousin, Callum. When the boy's name is reported in the media, Paddy's family believe that she is to blame. Shunned by those closest to her, she finds herself dangerously alone.

Paddy Meehan is trawling the city for a story that will get her off the terrible night shift to which she's been consigned by her male colleagues. And then a woman, bleeding from a vicious head wound, offers her £50 to leave her alone. The very next morning the woman is found dead. Only Paddy cares enough about what's really happened to pursue a dark and brutal truth that could make her career, or kill her.

Paddy Meehan is no stranger to murder - as a reporter she lives at crime scenes - but nothing has prepared her for this visit from the police. Her former boyfriend and fellow journalist Terry Patterson has been found hooded and shot through the head. Paddy knows she will be of little help - she had not seen Terry in more than six months. So she is bewildered to learn that in his will he has left her his house and several suitcases full of notes.

Glasgow, 1990. Paddy Meehan's relaxed Saturday in front of the TV is shattered when the police knock on her door. Terry Patterson has been found naked in a ditch, executed with a shot through his temple. He was her first love and her hero - the sort of journalist she'd always aspired to be.