It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a splash of color on the frozen ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbor, Catherine Ross. The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man-loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But when detective Jimmy Perez and his colleagues from the mainland insist on opening out the investigation,...

In this fourth Shetland Islands book, Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez brings his fiancée home to Fair Isle. But when a body is found at the island's bird observatory and a terrible storm cuts Fair Isle off from the rest of the world, Perez must solve the murder quickly before the killer strikes again.

When an elderly woman is shot in a tragic accident, Shetland detective Jimmy Perez is called to investigate. The sparse landscape and the emptiness of the sea have bred a fierce and secretive people. As Jimmy looks to the islanders for answers he finds instead two feuding families whose envy, greed and bitterness have lasted generations.