Something isn't quite right in Heptonclough, including the mysterious accidental deaths of three toddlers over the last ten years. It is not until Tom Fletcher's siblings, two-year-old Milly and five-year-old Joe Fletcher, go missing in turn that the little village's evil secret turns his family's dreams of an English paradise into a nightmare.

"Now living in a houseboat on the River Thames, Lacey Flint is becoming a part of London's weird and wonderful riverboat community. But at dawn one hot summer morning, Lacey finds the body of a shrouded young woman in the river. She assumes it was chance--after all she's recently joined the marine policing unit--but further investigation leads her team to suspect it was deliberately left for her to find. She is no longer a detective, but as she begins...