A little boy is snatched at the gate of his home while he waits for his lift to school. An ex-con struggling to go straight finds himself drawn back into a criminal ring. A young woman hovers between life and death. Detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler is called in to investigate. But with dead-ends mounting up and time running out, has he taken on a case so complex it threatens to defeat him? 'Not all great novelists can write crime crime fiction but when one like Susan Hill does it the result is stunning.' Ruth Rendell