The woman whose body was found down a South Wales coal mine was a stranger to those parts. She had come from the north-east in search of a missing husband, and with the help of an enquiry agent had found him. It does not take the local police long to put two and two together, especially when the husband confesses to the crime.

But at the trial an able defence counsel tears the police evidence to ribbons and the case is thrown wide open once again, much to the relief of Inspector Crow, who had always distrusted that confession. What puzzles him was why it had ever been made.

To find out, Crow travels to Canada, where the origin of the mystery lay. What he learns there, and how it affects the lives of several members of a close-knit Welsh community, forms the substance of Roy Lewis’s suspenseful book.