Lancashire, England, June 1920.
In a house with a red door lies the body of a woman who has been bludgeoned to death. Rumor has it that two years earlier, she'd painted that door to welcome her husband back from the Front. Only he never came home. Meanwhile, in London, a man suffering from a mysterious illness first goes missing and then just as suddenly reappears. He is unable to explain his recovery. His family, supposedly searching for him, give conflicting accounts of where they were and why.

What is the secret that nearly drove one man mad and turned his brothers and sister against one another with such unexpected savagery?

Inspector Ian Rutledge, drawn into both cases and facing a wall of silence, must solve two mysteries before he can bring a ruthless killer to justice:

Who was the woman who lived and died behind the red door?
Who was the man who never came home from the Great War, for the simple reason that he might never have gone?
And what have they to do with a man who cannot break the seal of his own guilt without damning those he loves most?