When winter draws in around Windermere it brings with it the death of Frances Henderson, best friend of Persimmon ‘Simmy’ Brown’s mother. Coping with the loss of a woman she has known all her life is hard, particularly coupled with the antagonism Simmy faces from some of Frances’s remaining family and the confusion of being bequeathed something in the will. Then a violent murder is discovered close to home and Simmy must face the fact that the family she was once so close to as a child holds some dark and sinister secrets. Simmy’s efforts to keep out of the investigation are frustrated when people from the past resurface, rumours of infidelity in the Henderson household whirl around, and her friends Ben and Bonnie become involved in solving the crime. The Lake District’s tranquillity will be uncertain until the mystery is completely resolved.