It wasn't the rain that upset Carole Seddon during her walk on the Downs, or the dilapidated barn in which she was forced to seek shelter. No, what upset her was the human skeleton she discovered there, neatly packed into two blue fertiliser bags . . .

Carole and Jude's enquiries take them to the small downland hamlet of Weldisham and there gossips quickly identify the corpse as Tamsin Lutteridge, a young woman who disappeared from the village months before. So why is Tamsin's mother, a friend of Jude's, so certain that her daughter is still alive?

As Jude sets out to find Tamsin, Carole digs deeper into Weldisham's history and the bitter relationships simmering beneath the village's gentle façade.

'Welcome return for Brett's lady sleuths . . . As crime gets a harder edge, it's refreshing to have an amiable light-hearted tale, which makes the most of wit and atmosphere' Yorkshire Post