On the first snowy
night of winter, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope sets off for her home
in the hills. Though the road is familiar, she misses a turning and
soon becomes lost and disorientated. A car has skidded off the narrow
road in front of her, its door left open, and she stops to help. There
is no driver to be seen, so Vera assumes that the owner has gone to find
help. But a cry calls her back: a toddler is strapped in the back seat.
Vera
takes the child and, driving on, she arrives at a place she knows well.
Brockburn is a large, grand house in the wilds of Northumberland, now a
little shabby and run down. It’s also where her father, Hector, grew
up. Inside, there’s a party in full swing: music, Christmas lights and
laughter. Outside, unbeknownst to the revelers, a woman lies dead in the
snow.
As the blizzard traps the group deep in the freezing
Northumberland countryside, Brockburn begins to give up its secrets, and
as Vera digs deeper into her investigation, she also begins to uncover
her family’s complicated past
