Two bodies - the corpses of a young man and woman - are discovered in the middle of a pre-historic stone circle in Derbyshire. Each met death in a different fashion. Each died violently. The grisly crime promises to be one of the toughest assignments of Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley's career. For the dead girl was the daughter of a former officer in an elite undercover unit, a man Lynley once regarded as a mentor. Now, as Lynley wrestles with the intricacies of the case in the Peak District, Barbara Havers, determined to redeem herself after her recent demotion, crisscrosses London seeking information on the second victim. As the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place, Lynley and Havers are once again forced to confront the icy realisation that human relationships are often murderous. and that the blood that binds can also kill.