Being brilliant has never been this dangerous ... When Dr Emma Sweeney stumbles across the victim of a hit-and-run outside Galway University late one evening, she calls her partner, Detective Cormac Reilly, bringing him to the scene of a murder that would otherwise never have been assigned to him. A security card in the dead woman’s pocket identifies her as Carline Darcy, a gifted student and heir apparent to Irish pharmaceutical giant Darcy Therapeutics. The multi-billion-dollar company, founded by her grandfather, sponsors university research facilities and has funded Emma’s own ground-breaking work. The inquiry into Carline’s death promises to be high profile and high pressure. As Cormac investigates, evidence mounts that the death is linked to a Darcy laboratory and, increasingly, to Emma herself. Cormac’s running of the case comes under scrutiny, and he is forced to question his own objectivity. Could his loyalty to Emma have led him to overlook evidence? Has it made him a liability?