When 13-year-old Matthew Whateley goes missing from a prestigious West Sussex public school, Inspector Thomas Lynley receives a call for help.

Lynley, his partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, and forensic scientist Simon St. James begin a search for a child - then for a child killer!

Lynley and Havers sense evil behind the school's cloistered walls. Their investigation exposes their own emotional wounds...and blinds them to the signs of another murder in the making.

"A compelling whodunit...a reader's delight." (Daily News)