On a balmy June night, Kirsten, a young university student, is attacked while walking home through a park. When she awakens in the hospital, she has no recollection of that brutal night. But in this standalone by the creator of the Inspector Banks series, details slowly reveal themselves—dreams of two figures, one white and one black, hovering over her; snatches of a strange and haunting song; the unfamiliar texture of a rough and deadly hand. In another part of the country, Martha Browne arrives in a Yorkshire seaside town, posing as an author working on a book. But her research is of a particularly macabre variety. Who is she hunting with such deadly determination? And how is it connected to Kirsten's experience?