The body is found slumped on a mudbank in Watchet harbour, washed up with the incoming tide. A middle-aged man. The post-mortem reveals he was viciously beaten before ending up in the sea. And strangely his lungs are filled with fresh water.

That’s when Detective Sophie Allen of the Wessex Serious Crimes Unit is called in. She and her team end up with the tricky cases, the ones no one else can handle.

A few days later, a second body is discovered in woodland high up on Exmoor.

Then a new lead takes the case in an unexpected direction — and a very personal one for Sophie. It takes her back to a family tragedy fifteen years before, and memories she’d prefer to leave buried forever.