As Victoria's top homicide investigator, Darian Richards spent years catching killers. The crimes of passion, of anger, of revenge ... they were easy. It was the monsters who were hard.

Someone was taking girls. At first he'd keep them a week then give them back. Darian warned that wouldn't last. It didn't. From then on, their bodies were never found. Girls kept disappearing. All they had in common was the fact they'd last been seen on a train.

The ever-rising list of the vanished broke Darian. Forced him to walk away. Now retired, watching the Noosa River flow by, the nightmares had finally stopped. Darian was never going back.

Then three girls go missing from Queensland trains. Darian knows that the killer is playing him. He has a choice to make. But when the decision means a girl will die, there is no choice. He has to stop this man, once and for all. Forever.