Detective Inspector Jane Tennison was beginning to feel she'd made a big mistake.

Having requested a transfer to a station nearer her home, she's now wondering if any serious crimes are ever committed in Bromley. Especially since the first case she's assigned to involves nothing more dramatic than an altercation between neighbours over a disputed property boundary.

Jane's new boss wants her to wrap up the enquiry as quickly as possible, but something in the apparently trivial case doesn't add up.

Why was Martin Boon so adamant that David Caplan shouldn't install a new set of gates when they wouldn't encroach on his own property?

Against her boss's orders, Jane decides to dig deeper, and soon uncovers a trove of dark secrets in sleepy Clarendon Court involving a tragic death and a forbidden love affair. As Tennison hunts for the missing piece of evidence that will identify a vicious killer, she knows that this case will either make her career - or break it.