Dead Catch When Joe Christies fishing boat is swept onto Tentsmuir beach during a fierce storm a mans mutilated body is found in the hold DCI Andy Gilchrist of St Andrews CID is called in to investigate But his murder investigation deepens when he learns that Joe Christie and his boat have been missing for three years The police pathologist Dr Rebecca Cooper retrieves a five pound note from the dead mans throat Is this the killers calling card And whatever happened to Joe Christie Cooper offers Gilchrist a clue to the dead mans identity a scar from a recent operation to repair a bone shattered by a bullet The dead man is found to have been on the payroll of big Jock Shepherd Scotlands premier crime patriarch and when three more of Shepherds men turn up brutally murdered Gilchrist fears a tectonic shift in the criminal underworld