Two suspicious deaths challenge DS Alan Banks and his crack investigative team.

The body of an attractive young woman dressed in evening attire is found in an abandoned car on a country road. The death looks like suicide, but there are too many open questions for Banks and his team to rule out foul play. The car didn’t belong to her—it was badly damaged in an accident involving the vehicle’s owner a week earlier in the same spot. So how did the dead girl get inside the car? Did someone place her there, and if so, why? Where—and when—did she die?

While Banks attends the postmortem, DI Annie Cabot is at the scene of another death. A well-dressed man in his sixties has been found in a gully high up on the wild moorland. His injuries were fatal and consistent with those sustained in a fall. Was it an accident—did the man get too close to the edge and slip? Was he pushed? The man was wearing an expensive suit. What was he doing in a rocky spot popular with hikers? There are no signs of a vehicle near where he fell. How did he get there?