Susan McCarthy is a health centre manager in the Yorkshire Dales, engaged to be married to geography teacher Rob Dugdale. Her life couldn't be happier. Except Susan McCarthy isn't Susan McCarthy at all, but Jennifer Reynolds, a young woman who has succeeded in escaping a deeply unhappy past.

Then a TV programme is broadcast examining the mystery of three women who disappeared without trace, one of them being Jennifer Reynolds. The following day, a local teenage girl is found dead, and the town becomes the centre of a major murder enquiry. With her fianc Rob under suspicion, and terrified she'll be recognised from the increasing national press coverage, Jennifer fears that the idyllic new life she has worked so hard to achieve is about to be destroyed.

When more bodies are unearthed, Jennifer realizes that in order to discover the truth she will have to revisit her troubled past - and put herself in grave danger in the process.