On a hot and beautiful day in the English countryside, six-year-old Joanna Mason witnesses an appalling crime. Thirty years later, the man convicted of the crime is released from prison.

Sixteen-year-old Reggie works as a nanny for a doctor devoted to her new young son. But Dr. Hunter has gone missing, and Reggie, no stranger to bad luck and worse, seems to be the only person who is worried.

Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe is also looking for a missing person, unaware that hurtling toward her is an old friend-Jackson Brodie- himself on a journey that becomes fatally interrupted.

As lives and histories intersect, as past mistakes and current misfortunes collide, Jackson is caught up in the most personal, and dangerous, investigation of his life