The breathtaking vista of Salisbury Plain stretches out beneath the hilltop pasture—a view that would be magnificent if not for the grotesquely trampled body lying in the mud. Claude Selwood, patriarch of Coombe Farm, has met a violent end beneath his prized stallion’s hooves.

Detective Inspector Keith Tremayne—cantankerous and thoroughly irritated by the biting wind—surveys the scene skeptically. His sergeant, Clare Yarwood, whose equestrian knowledge gives her insight Tremayne lacks, immediately notices inconsistencies. Why would an experienced horseman turn his back on a temperamental stallion? Why visit this remote pasture during approaching storms?

As detectives secure evidence before rain washes it away, they uncover Coombe Farm’s complicated dynamics. The once tight-knit Selwood family had fractured over Claude’s controversial plans to sell portions of their ancestral land to developers, setting children against each other and surfacing decades of resentment.

With millions at stake, each family member had the opportunity and motive. Could someone have deliberately spooked the horse? Was Claude lured to this remote location with promises of reconciliation, only to meet a calculated end disguised as a tragic accident?

The farmhand who discovered the body, the conservation-minded daughter, the modernization-focused son, and the wife with a hidden past each tell a slightly different story about Claude’s final day. In this rural community where everyone knows everyone’s business, the truth lies buried beneath generations of secrets.