"There is a kind of beauty that produces wolf whistles, and another kind of beauty that creates silence all about it, taking the voices out of men's mouths and the breath out of their throats." Annet Beck's beauty is of the second order and it worries her parents so much that they guard her as closely as a prisoner...until the rainy Thursday in October when she disappears. Annet is last seen vanishing over the crest of Hallowmount, a hill in the remote Welsh Country believed to be the domain of witches. Five days later she mysteriously reappears, claiming that she was gone for only two hours. Detective Inspector George Felse doesn't believe in witchcraft, but he does believe in love and he never underestimates its power, especially when it may have led to murder...