"It was your sleuthing that brought us here. If you feel any responsibility, find out what has really happened to Ruby. You owe it to us, Gina."
This is the message, from the woman who was once her closest friend, that takes Gina Gray to the Lake District to unravel a mystery in circumstances which undermine even her boundless self-confidence.
Charged with finding out what happened to a thirteen-year-old girl who has gone missing during a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, she takes her granddaughter Freda with her to act as her undercover agent among the town's teenagers, and while Freda struggles with the secrets and lies among the young, Gina launches herself into an investigation which turns toxic.
Off her home ground, increasingly uneasy about the motives of a student she has befriended, at odds with her on/off partner, Detective Superintendent David Scott, she finds herself mired in a relationship which eventually puts both Freda and herself in mortal danger.