Just after dawn, Caren inspects the grounds of Belle Vie, the historic plantation house she manages. Back at her office, the gardener calls to tell her she missed something. Something terrible.

At a distance, she didn’t see. A young woman lying face down in a shallow grave, her throat cut clean.

So there will be police, asking questions. The family who own Belle Vie will have to be told. There’s a school group on the way to visit. Where is Donovan, the member of staff no one has seen?

And all the time, Caren is thinking that there are only so many keys, only so many ways in to Belle Vie with its six foot high perimeter fence. And as she lives on site with her daughter, she wonders: how much danger are they in?

A thriller with as much heart as it has pace, Attica Locke combines a riveting mystery with a shattering story of how our history is never just the past.