Called out by Scotland Yard into the teeth of a violent blizzard in the Lake District of England, Inspector Ian Rutledge finds himself confronted with one of the most savage murders he has ever encountered. Rutledge might have expected such unspeakable carnage on the World War I battlefields, but not in an otherwise peaceful farm kitchen in remote Urskdale. Someone has murdered the Elcott family at their table without the least sign of struggle. Was the killer someone the young family knew and trusted? What had the Elcotts done to ignite their killer’s rage? Love, jealousy, greed, revenge—or was it some twisted combination of all of them? When the victims are tallied the local police are in for another shock: One of the children is missing.Now the Inspector must race to uncover a murderer and save a child before he’s silenced by the merciless elements—or the even colder hands of a killer. With time running out, Rutledge knows all too well that such a cold-blooded murderer could be hiding somewhere in the blinding snow…preparing to strike again.