People like Dash didn't die. He was only what? Mid-thirties? Well off. Adored. By some anyway. World at his feet. Well, Myddle at his feet, which was his world.
Ruth Dawson has taken a break from big city law to fill in for a few months for an old mate in Myddle. How hard can it be? she thinks. Turns out, very hard.
So when Ruth hears the front door of her office open, she's expecting a weird demand, or a question she doesn't know the answer to ... but it's Bea Baulderstone's mum, worried that she hasn't seen her seventeen-year-old daughter for five days, and Constable Gazza Parker is refusing to report the girl missing. Easily fixed, thinks Ruth, and heads off down Myddle's main street to charm Gazza into action.
But Victoria Baulderstone was Gazza doesn't care. That is until Dash Rogers is found at his farm gate, dead from a gunshot wound, and suddenly the town is very interested in Bea's whereabouts.
And it's not just Bea who can't be found. Dash's wife Evie is AWOL too.
Then Troy, Evie's protégé and Bea's only friend, also smoke-bombs.