On compassionate leave after the murder of his wife, Thomas Lynley is called back to Scotland Yard when the body of a woman is found stabbed and abandoned in an isolated London cemetery. His former team doesn't trust the leadership of their new department chief, Isabelle Ardery, whose management style seems to rub everyone the wrong way. In fact, Lynley may be the sole person who can see beneath his superior officer's hard-as-nails exterior to a hidden—and possibly attractive—vulnerability.

While Lynley works in London, his former colleagues, Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata, follow the murder trail south to the New Forest. There they discover a beautiful and strange place, where animals roam free and outsiders are not entirely welcome. What they don't know is that more than one dark secret lurks among the trees, and that their investigation will lead them to an outcome that is both tragic and shocking.