John River (Stellan Skarsgärd The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Insomnia) is a gifted police officer with a secret. As a man haunted by manifestations of the dead, including a tormenting killer, Thomas Cream (Eddie Marsan - Ray Donovan) and the murder victims whose secrets he must unlock, he walks a tightrope between maintaining respectability at work and managing his own fragile state of mind. His colleague and confidant, Detective Sergeant Jackie Stevie Stevenson (Nicola Walker - Last Tango in Halifax) lends River the emotional support he so badly needs, whilst his boss, Chief Inspector Chrissie Reid (Lesley Manville - An Adventure In Space and Time) is conflicted between River s obvious talents and his evident problems.

Adrift in a London full of other exiled souls, River s own isolation helps him connect with the troubled victims who crash into his world, and to see the truth in ways his colleagues are drawn to admire and question, in equal measure. But as his long-held defences are eroded by love and loss, River is torn between the living and the dead; will he have to choose once and for all?