1936 Crammingdon Derbyshire UK. Eleven year old Jenny Parminter has failed to arrive home from school and the town of Crammingdon is on tenterhooks. DI Brierly recognises that his top priority must be finding the missing child, even whilst he has to deal with the Mayor's missing paintings and a pair of fraudulent undertakers. Is Jenny lying injured somewhere, has she fallen into the nearby canal and been drowned or has she as DC Will Dexter is beginning to believe, been abducted. Then evidence of sacrificial activities high on the Derbyshire moors has Crammingdon's tiny CID force offering up a silenct prayer. "Please God, let this not involve the missing girl."