On a storm-driven night, wreckers drive a merchant ship onto a rocky shore in Ireland. An abbess is slaughtered and six religieuse abducted. An ageing scholar is murdered in the Abbey of Ard Fhearta. What is the link that connects these crimes? Who is the shadowy 'master' spreading death and corruption across the land? Has the evil Uaman the Leper, Lord of the Passes, returned from the dead? Sister Fidelma and her companion, Brother Eadulf, are asked to go to Ard Fhearta to examine the mystery. But the abbey stands in the territory of the Ui Fidgente, blood enemies of Fidelma and her brother, the King of Cashel. In this treacherous place, Fidelma and Eadulf find they have undertaken a most perilous journey.