Charlie Colquhoun is a journalist whose career is floundering. As a teenager, he fathered a daughter, Tommy, who was committed to foster care as an infant. Seventeen years later, Charlie, Tommy and Charlie's old schoolmate Harris Hill, now a squeaky-clean solicitor, are reunited by a scandal that includes child pornography, blackmail and murder.
A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.