DCI Monika Paniatowski has a bitter personal history with Chief Superintendent Kershaw, but that is not the only reason she doesn’t not want the investigation into the sudden – and probably violent – disappearance of his wife, Elaine, landing on her desk.

Why should all the resources of the Whitebridge police be channelled into this one case? she asks herself. Why doesn’t somebody – anybody – take an interest in the disappearance of a young prostitute called Grace Meade?

Though she has been told that solving the Kershaw case could make or break her career, she determines to devote part of her time to finding out what happened to Grace. But when a heavily mutilated body is discovered on the moors, it begins to look as if she has made the wrong decision.