"When DCI Michael Thackeray enters the kitchen he finds the bodies of a mother and her young daughter, and outside a trail of crimson in the snow leads him to another girl, still alive. With Scott, another young child, missing and his father gone, the police conclude this is a domestic row turned violent. As Thackeray searches for the father, Gordon Christie, journalist Laura Ackroyd wonders just who the missing man is, for he left no personal items and there are no traceable records of him. Thackeray is driven to the brink of resignation before the full tragedy is uncovered." -- BOOK JACKET.