Aveyard is an unusual policeman. He is the youngest Detective Inspector on the Birton force, and the crime he is sent to solve in a small village nearby is an extraordinary one:
The body of a teen-age girl is found under an evergreen in the garden of the Manor, a hangout for village youth. The girl has been strangled and horribly mutilated. The consequences of her murder--and of Aveyard's investigation--reach surprisingly deep into the undercurrents of an apparently placid village life.
James Fraser's first Inspector Aveyard story has all the elements of great detective fiction--a rich, sometimes sinister tangle of clues, motivations, and meanings; a brilliant, sympathetic leading character; and a pace that deftly replaces each answered mystery with an unanswered one. The author's prime concern, however, is a more serious one. He unravels a whole village, brings its whole cast vividly to life, and looks minutely at what makes them tick.
What he finds and what Aveyard uncovers--reluctantly and with care--might have been nothing more than a dream, an innocent self-deception--but it led to death.