St Bride's guest house, just outside the town of Melinfforest, was a restful place with glorious views of the Welsh countryside. Tim Frazer, however, had no time for fishing and long country walks. He had been sent there to find out why Miss Thackery, a British intelligence agent, had been brutally murdered and her body dumped ...
In Venice, Frances Croy is working to leave the previous year behind: another novel published to little success, a scathing review she can't quite manage to forget, and, most of all, the real reason behind her self-imposed exile from London: the incident at the Savoy. Sequestered within an aging palazzo, Frankie finds comfort in the emptiness of Venice in winter, in the absence of others. And then Gilly appears.