Detective Superintendent Roy Grace has been a dedicated police officer for many years, yet recently he finds his career in serious jeopardy. Struggling not only with the unsolved disappearance of his beloved wife Sandy six years earlier but also with recent damage to his reputation as a result of his unorthodox policing methods, Grace is warned by his superiors that he is on very thin ice. Surrounded by cold case files which are a constant reminder of his own lack of closure, Grace is struggling to move on despite his best efforts to. A visit from old friend and colleague Detective Sergeant Glenn Branson, who is determined to pull Roy Grace back into the land of the living, soon finds Grace drawn into two investigations which test his abilities and instincts to breaking point. He and Branson, together with colleagues Emma Jane Boutwood, Bella Moy and Nick Nicholl must put together the pieces, first to solve the disappearance of a groom who has vanished without a trace on his stag night just days before his wedding and then to investigate two sinister deaths, which Grace believes to be the work of a twisted serial killer using the South coast as a hunting ground.
