When a half-frozen body is found under the Bawd Stone, a local landmark linked with pagan ritual, DI Laurie Bower’s first call is to her best detective sergeant, Joseph Ashe. On leave after a traumatic case, Joe is still haunted by the tragedy he survived 17 years ago, when a school bus veered off the road and everyone drowned except him.

Joe and Laurie join forces as this new case takes them back to her old stamping ground of inner-city Manchester. But when the body is identified as Godfrey Hulme, her dead sister’s counsellor, it quickly becomes a deeply personal murder investigation. The truth of what happened, in both the past and the present, will have devastating consequences for Laurie and Joe alike.