When David Cordiner marries Tessa he feels his life is starting all over again.
He gets a transfer to a small police station in mid Wales, leaving behind the stresses of inner-London policing, his previous marriage, and the son who doesn't want to see him anymore.
Tessa, an artist, will be able to paint from the cosy little cottage they share in a Welsh village.
But the rural idyll of life in a remote Welsh valley soon turns sour for the Cordiners. For David, life in the local police force is deathly dull after the exhilaration of working for the Met. For Tessa, the hostility of the local community is a daily torment.
Then a young nurse is found dead at a nearby beauty spot, her corpse strewn with wild flowers in some sick and sinister private ceremony.
Caught up in the challenge of a murder investigation, David misses the signs that danger is stalking his wife in their secluded cottage.
Imprisoned by fear and isolation, Tessa's efforts to escape her situation expose her to even more deadly danger, for the roots of the tragedy stretch far back into the past ..