This time, the action does not take place in university Cambridge and not among crowds of tourists flocking to the Edinburgh Festival, though the Scottish capital again provides a picturesque backdrop. And the trigger for it all is a nightmare crime from thirty years ago that shook quiet Devonshire and all of England—and now a convicted murderer, having served his time, is released.
Meanwhile, the doctor Hunter disappears together with a little child—but her disappearance seems to worry only her shepherd dog, Sadie, and sixteen-year-old babysitter Reggie. And the senior detective inspector Louisa Monroe is concerned about another disappearance—without yet knowing that Jackson Brodie is about to barge into her life again, at full speed (literally).