Police detective, Commandant Alain Verneau, is within weeks of retirement when, relaxing on his floating garden in the famed hortillonage district of Amiens, a body washes up. Working his notice, Verneau is assigned a very small team to identify the unknown man and find out how he ended up dead, having been only half-strangled and left to drown in the River Somme. In an age of online profiles and CCTV can a man, even a visitor to a town, be so unknown? Where are the family and friends seeking him? Determined to resolve at least some of the mysteries of this final case before he finally leaves police work, Verneau is reminded that his robust approach to life is not one shared by all.

Alexander Rooksmoor has been writing crime fiction since the 1990s. With a crime story as the background, this novel reflects on our identities in the context of everything in the social media age being so public and how we might see value or its lack, in whatever we choose or feel we must do.