Midwinter. A child is found wandering in woodland, her hands covered in blood. Unwilling, or unable to speak, the only person she trusts is the officer who rescued her, Detective Sergeant Lucy Black. Then, DS Black is baffled when she's suddenly moved from a high-profile case involving the kidnapping of another girl, a prominent businessman's teenage daughter. Black's problems are not only professional: she's caring for her increasingly unstable father, and trying to avoid conflict with her frosty mother: the Assistant Chief Constable. As she struggles to identify the unclaimed child, Black begins to realize that her case and the kidnapping may be linked by events that occurred during the grimmest days of the country's recent history - events that also defined her own troubled childhood.words : 75626