Summer, 1545. Henry VIII's invasion of France has gone wrong, and a French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel. Meanwhile Matthew Shardlake is asked to investigate claims of "monstrous wrongs" committed against a young ward of the court and they journey to Portsmouth. The emerging mysteries around the young ward, and the events that destroyed Ellen's family nineteen years before, involve Shardlake in reunions both with an old friend and an old enemy close to the throne. Events will converge on board one of the King's great warships, primed for battle in Portsmouth harbour...