When the body of missing investigative reporter George Younger is discovered on a mountain-top near the Highland village of Kinlochleven, veteran Glasgow detective Cameron Brodie volunteers to investigate the murder, but has more than the case on his agenda.

"Bea's five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden. Bea, Agnes, and eighteen others volunteer to live in the Wilderness State, guinea pigs in an experiment...