A solicitor sent to a small village to settle the estate of a dead client fuels the wrath of a sinister, mysterious woman in black and is driven to the brink of insanity.

"From the outside, the cathedral town of Lafferton seems idyllic, but in many ways it is just like any other place. It suffers from the same kinds of crime, is subject to the same pressures from a rapidly changing world, and has the same hopes and fears as any number of towns up and down the land. When Simon Serrailler is called in by Lafferton's new Chief Constable, Kieran Bright, he is met by two plainclothes officers, who ask him to take the principal...

"Investigating a cold case while recovering from a near-fatal injury, Simon Serrailler finds his personal and professional lives intertwining in unexpected ways when his constable brother-in-law suffers a setback at the same time an arsonist begins a deadly rampage." --

An adventurous child slips out of her mother's warm kitchen to explore the mysteries of a cold winter evening; but, in the dark woods, her imagination creates fearsome images which drive her home to her mother's arms.