An Inspector Wexford mystery. On a stormy February afternoon, little Stella Rivers disappears and is never seen again. Then, on a warm October day, 5-year-old John Lawrence fails to come home, and evil, mad, taunting letters begin, which make the worst, unspoken imaginings a brutal reality.
In the year 1780, Harriet Westerman, the willful mistress of a country manor in Sussex, finds a dead man on her grounds with a ring bearing the crest of Thornleigh Hall in his pocket. Not one to be bound by convention or to shy away from adventure, she recruits a reclusive local anatomist named Gabriel Crowther to help her find the murderer, and historical suspense's newest investigative duo is born.