Liverpool Catholic parish priest, Michael Jones receives an anonymous letter, denouncing an unnamed priest for abuse and betrayal of the secrets of the confessional. Who is the evil-doer? His fellow parish priest, the irreverent Father O'Malley? Or one of his predecessors, Father Ambrose, whose body is wasted by illness but whose eyes glow with the intensity of his faith, or Father Coffey, the quiet scholar buried in the his studies of Church history?

As he struggles to solve a mystery protected by the obsessively secretive Church hierarchy, Michael ventures into an inner world he never knew existed; he finds victims of dispossession, cruelty, and repression. To his horror he realises the answer may lie in a terrible secret at the heart of his own family history. 'Out of the Depths' is a study of the evil which can be hidden behind an aura of holiness, a baffling crime puzzle in which the priest detectives struggle against seemingly impossible odds, and a heart-breaking story of thwarted love.