On the first snowy night of winter, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope sets off for her home in the hills, and finds a car has skidded off the narrow road in front of her. There is no driver to be seen, and a toddler is strapped in the back seat. In this ninth outing (after The Seagull), Vera takes the child to her father's ancestral home, Brockburn, where there's a Christmas party in full swing. Outside, unbeknownst to the revelers, a woman lies dead in the snow. As the blizzard traps the group deep in the freezing Northumberland countryside, Vera digs deeper into her investigation, and begins to uncover her family's complicated past.