CI Vera Stanhope is drawn into a suspicious passing on Ternstone, a remote and inaccessible island off the coast of Northumberland, home only to numerous species of birds and the rangers who observe them. The last thing anyone expected to see was a body, cruelly washed up on the shore.

When the body of a drug addict is found face down in a river, DCI Vera Stanhope is forced to delve back into an old case in order to unmask the hugger.

DCI Vera Stanhope is called to the University of Northumberland when Jamie Marshall, a young, promising journalism student, plummets to his passing from the top of a disused faculty building.

With no eyewitnesses and no immediate leads, Vera turns to friends and family to glean all she can about Jamie, and to discover who might have wanted him dead.

Surveyors out on the Northumberland moors make a shocking discovery: the body of a young woman buried beneath the soil.

On the scene, assumptions are that this is the body of local teenager, Mia Hinkin, who disappeared six weeks ago. DCI Vera Stanhope is forced to deliver the terrible news to a broken family, desperate for answers.