Meet Detective Sophie Allen, head of the newly-formed Wessex Serious Crime Unit. She gets all the tricky cases, the ones no one else can handle. The body is found slumped on a mudbank in Watchet harbour, washed up with the incoming tide. A middle-aged man. The post-mortem reveals he was viciously beaten before ending up in the sea. But strangely his lungs are filled with fresh water. That’s when Detective Sophie Allen of the Wessex Serious Crimes Unit is called in. She and her team end up with the tricky cases, the ones no one else can handle.

A few days later, a second body is discovered in woodland high up on Exmoor. Then a new lead takes the case in a very personal direction for Sophie. Back to a family tragedy fifteen years before, and memories she’d prefer to leave buried forever. This could be the case that will crack her.