Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy breaks into the house of missing nurse Marilyn Smith and finds Marilyn upstairs, spread-eagled across the bed. Provocatively dressed and elaborately made-up. Marilyn is also very dead. Despite a lack of evidence at the post mortem, DI Piercy is convinced that Marilyn was murdered. A newcomer and a woman in the remote moorland town, Piercy must battle against several prejudices in her determination to find the killer, but could she be wrong? Is it possible that Marilyn Smith's death was not murder at all