The second riveting crime novel in the Karen Pirie series, from No.1 Sunday Times bestseller Val McDermid. Twenty-five years ago, a woman and her baby son were kidnapped and held to ransom. Catriona Grant ended up dead and little Adam's fate has remained a mystery ever since. When a new clue is discovered in a deserted Tuscan villa – along with grisly evidence of a recent murder – cold case expert DI Karen Pirie is assigned to follow the trail. She's already working a case from the same year. During the Miners' Strike of 1984, pit worker Mick Prentice vanished. Where did he really go? And is there a link to the Grant mystery? The truth is stranger – and far darker – than fiction.