Cementing a crack in the Bodine marriage, Henry Bodine and his wife, Simone, adopt a young daughter, Kathy. When Kathy is accidentally poisoned and dies during a sailing holiday in the Caribbean, it's more than Simone can bear. In the midst of a break down, Simone returns to England and turns to prescription drugs in an effort to stay sane. Desperate to escape his wife's suffering, Bodine heads off to the Scottish Highlands. In a remote hotel, trapped by bad winter weather and cut off from the rest of the country, Henry takes solace in a romantic liaison. But when a fellow guest and the hotel manager are both murdered, Henry must untangle the mystery and intrigue that surrounds the place, not to mention the loose ends of his grief, his marriage, and his affair.