After two beautiful young people are killed in the same manner, DCI Vera Stanhope knows that she must find the murderer before he strikes again.

Vera Stanhope sets out to retrospectively resolve the murder of a teenage girl. As secrets and lies are exposed, Vera closes in on the truth and lays ghosts from the past to rest.

A woman is murdered in the remote Northumbrian countryside leading DI Vera Stanhope back to a place from her past.

Usually awkward and disinterested around children, Vera finds a kindred spirit in the boy of a murdered woman. Along the way, she realizes that the key to the case lies deep in the child’s memory.