When troubled but talented young author Euan meets decorated novelist Malcolm Furnivall, he feels his luck has finally changed. Malcolm takes Euan as a protégé, vouching for him in the rarefied literary scene in the 1950s. But lately, Malcolm has not been himself.

Consumed by his work, he cuts an increasingly isolated figure and has become convinced that something terrible will befall him. He summons his loved ones to his secluded island in the Hebrides and – to everyone's surprise – entrusts Euan with the task of completing his masterpiece. Malcolm's suspicions soon prove well-founded; he is discovered brutally murdered in his study, and his invaluable unfinished novel has vanished.

Cut off from the mainland, with the killer on the loose and the island's inhabitants circling, Euan feels both his mentor's legacy and his only chance at greatness slipping away. He must venture deep into Malcolm's labyrinthine mansion to find the manuscript before it falls into the wrong hands. But what he doesn't yet know is that the closer he comes to solving the mystery, the tighter he will bind himself to a fate sealed in time.