Newly promoted DS Julie Kite has been in sleepy mid-Wales for mere months when she's faced with her second murder case. A man's body has been found by school kids trekking the Monk's Trod. The trail takes her back north to her parents in Manchester and to a housing estate in Blackpool. It's not a simple case - a young mother has disappeared, but so has her son and her next door neighbour's wife. And the husband of the landlady of the B&B where the girl was staying. When an exserviceman farmhand with PTSD attempts to take his own life the case gets more complex still.