When he's shunned by the living, and the dead won't leave him alone, Dunstan Wainright, a young man who sees ghosts, bids farewell to the little village he grew up in and tries to start over in the big city, where nobody has ever heard of "that strange Wainwright boy". But life in Ceolburg isn't what he imagined it to be, and when his options run out, he accepts an offer of employment with the head of the Duchess of Ceolburg's secret police, Ernst Arwald. With the new job come new perspectives, and new enemies. Does Dunstan have what it takes to survive?