Anthony Loxton, reluctant third-generation funeral director by day, is by night Tony the Fox, a guitarist in the bars of Kalk Bay. It looks like there’s no escape from the burden of the past. But when Lily, Tony’s one-night stand, arrives in a body bag at the Loxton Funeral Parlour, he surprises himself by breaking his own rules.

As the boundaries separating the two worlds he has created for himself collapse, Anthony’s journey of self-discovery begins, accompanied by a cast of unforgettable characters. A chain of events takes him to the edge of tragedy and disaster and back again.

He discovers that the living are more fragile than the dead and that joy can arise in the most unlikely circumstances.

Paola Dante is a driven project manager employed by a large multinational information technology corporation who reads war strategy books for relaxation. In general she prefers computers to people with their random uncontrolled emotions. Long ago she made a decision that matters of the heart were inherently messy and should be kept at arm’s distance. But her husband had surprised her; she had no resistance against Daniel. Now she sees herself as a survivor who has successfully moved on from the traumatic events and terrible truth surrounding her husband’s sudden disappearance years before. But the truth is that ever since the night he walked out on their marriage back to his old ways she’s found it hard to get on with normal life.

An unlikely and ill-equipped mother, she stands alone between their adopted daughter Simone and the criminal kingpin who wants the teenage girl for his own ends and has set the savage wolves on her.

To save her daughter - and herself - once and for all, Paola will face her every fear, her every mistake, and the past she thought she’d finally processed and left behind.