A brutal murder punctures the tranquillity of a rural idyll: a middle-aged couple are found stabbed to death; their teenaged daughter is missing. Where is Gemma? Demands the headline of the Rutland Record. Alison, chief reporter, endeavours to unravel the truth and in doing so must confront the shadows of her own, shocking past and the bleakness at the heart of the prettiest of the prettiest of English Country Counties.