Astrid’s life is going great: she restores paintings at the National Gallery and lives her best life with her husband in London. But everything changes overnight—first a divorce, and then... a mysterious inheritance in Dorset. Astrid, without hesitation, heads west. But on arrival she discovers she inherited not a charming seaside cottage, but an old boat. And even at her new job things don’t go well. First it turns out that the “English Foundation” on whose estate Astrid works is a real hotbed of intrigues, and then, in the county, they find a local resident murdered. Astrid takes on the investigation, because for her it’s the same as restoring a painting: slowly removing layer after layer to see the truth. But as the number of suspicious deaths grows, Astrid has to use all the tools from her professional toolkit to unravel the mystery, save her reputation—and possibly even her life.