On the eve of Anzac Day, Dr Lucien Blake is called to the morgue where the attendant has been murdered. With the autopsy tools and a body missing, Dr Blake smells a rat.

When a solider is killed during a routine training exercise, Doctor Blake finds himself at the Ballarat Military Base facing his old nemesis Major Derek Alderton.

A man falls from the Ballarat Fire Station bell tower. What appears to be a suicide turns into a murder investigation taking Blake deep into the heart of the Regional Fire Association.

When Blake's old friend turned enemy Derek Alderton is found dead, the hunt for the killer turns back onto Blake himself.