Independent Edinburgh, 2026 – and maverick investigator Quintilian Dalrymple faces his toughest case yet. The birth-rate is down in the Council’s ‘perfect city’ and gangs of disaffected kids roam the streets. A break-in at the former Scottish Parliament archive is rapidly followed by two gruesome murders, the victims mutilated and covered with blood-drenched branches. Before Quint can begin to fathom what’s going on, Edinburgh’s brightest teenagers are abducted and Quint himself is spirited away to the much-feared democratic city-state of Glasgow. What he finds there will change his life forever…