When his former deputy Julie invites Detective Peter Diamond and his partner Paloma to spend a week at her home in rural Somerset Diamond is horrified. What could be worse than seven days in the back end of nowhere? But it turns out that Julie has an ulterior motive. A local woman is doing time for manslaughter after a wild party ended in a tragic accident: a man suffocated in a silo of grain. Nobody in the village has much sympathy for Claudia the unruly daughter of a wealthy local farmer. Nobody that is except Julie who is convinced there's more to this case than there appears and wants her former boss to investigate. And as Diamond tests his skills as an amateur sleuth he soon discovers that the countryside isn't quite so dull as he'd anticipated. . .

Part of the A Detective Peter Diamond Mystery series.