
D I Tom Reid and his pyschiatrist wife Helen, along with her two children, travel to the Dordogne to vist her parents. They are recently married.

Tom is on leave from the Met for stress, after a really serious case involving a child abductor when he almost got killed - he is a bit shell shocked  - also not entirely adjusted to the role of being a step father.  This is going to be a strain, especially as he needs his work to keep him happy.

Fortunately the idyllic village where Helen's Welsh father and French mother live is a hot bed of secrets, scandals and tensions.  Within the first three days Toby, Helen's eight year old, finds a dead body in an old barn...

Though the case is strictly off limits, Tom can't help getting involved and soon begins to wonder if the French investigating magistrate isn't beling deliberately stupid for some reason. 