It was a monstrous fantasy - but then it all came true. As Philippa Barnes, a young Franz Josef glacier guide, is reeling from her parents' death in a climbing accident, journalist Kirsten Browne is murdered near a mountain lake. Philippa and Kirsten's brother Jack try and find out what she was investigating, while a diarist tries to make sense of a betrayal that has poisoned many lives. Philippa's search will take her from the secretive people of the lake to the home of high court judge, Loraine Latimer, a woman with an uneasy relationship with her family. Philippa discovers that Kirsten's murder is linked to a decades-old mystery, but not in time to prevent another tragedy.