A civil war leaves behind many secrets. On the Torremolinos coast survivors of Spain’s Civil War and foreigners with reasons of their own to fear the past gather in the Hotel Miramar to drink and forget. Johnnie Ray tries to ignore his fading fame, having fought for Franco, Eugene Furlong cannot return to Ireland. Both men find themselves involved in the life of Adriana, a local woman, who has her own secret from the Civil War. However, Franco's police are hunting the ghosts who remain hidden in this doomed, damnable country of theirs.

Maurice Leitch's novels have always stunningly evoked a period and place, Gone to Earth explores the conflicts, and acts of defiance, of a country in the aftermath of civil war.