Thirteen months of idyll have transpired since reformed petty criminal Alastair Gow moved in with pub landlord (and gifted seer) Paul Apollyon. When de facto marital bliss gives way to preternatural weirdness, unflappable Paul is unwilling to let Alastair face his past alone.

First, a regular customer delivers words of caution from a ghost. Second, Paul has a spate of ominous visions. Third, the new maid finds a dead crow hanging from the pub's front door.

As though that's not enough to be dealing with, a former colleague of Alastair's arrives without warning, maintaining Alastair owes him. The new chaos seems connected to a past good deed-Alastair can admit to the deed itself. He just doesn't want to own what it enabled him to do. As he and Paul find themselves forced into an absurd search for lost smugglers' loot, proper vulnerability proves more daunting than prospective peril. But Alastair doesn't expire from telling the truth, and Paul is as steadfast as ever.

Then, another poor corvid serves as a sinister message... and the man who leaves it will stop at nothing to have Alastair for himself.