For centuries, a village in Yorkshire, England, lay in a Sleeping Beauty slumber until a brutal murder disrupts the idyllic scene: The village vicar discovers the decapitated body of his faithful sheep, William, in a barn. Next to the corpse crouches Roberta, his slightly dim-witted daughter. She claims, "It was me." And falls silent. Scotland Yard sends Inspector Thomas Lynley and Sergeant Barbara Havers. The two are working together for the first time and make for a rather unusual team. However, the case leaves them no time to acclimate. On-site, they are met with an opaque tangle of secrets and dependencies, behind which a gruesome truth lurks.