When young Tracey Pedley vanished in the woods around Burrthorpe, the close-knit community had their own ideas about what had happened, but Deputy Chief Constable Matmough has it down as the work of a child-killer who has since committed suicide - though others wondered about the last man to see her alive and his fatal plunge into a disused mine shaft.

Returning to the town he left in anger, Colin Farr's homecoming is ready for trouble, and when a university course brings him into contact with Ellie Pascoe, trouble starts...

Meanwhile, Andy Dalziel mutters imprecations on the sidelines, until a murder in Burrthorpe mine forces him to take action that brings him up against a hostile and frightened community...