Detective Chief Inspector Ben Wallace is called to investigate the murder of a girl discovered on the banks of the Severn, just below Blackfriars in Shrewsbury. She has been strangled and pushed into the river. The victim has no physical injuries, only postmortem bruises from being carried by the current, and there is no evidence to identify the victim.


Pathologist Dr Jo Barnett, Wallace's long-suffering girlfriend, examines the body. She ascertains the girl was around seventeen years old. During the postmortem she informs Wallace that the victim was pregnant, and she has taken heroin, but most importantly a tie has been used to strangle her. A memory instantly comes to the forefront of Wallace's mind. It had been almost twenty years, but he will never forget the identical tragic case of Jessica Parker. Odd that both murders were seventeen-year-old schoolgirls. The only difference is that one is in a private school, the other in a state school. Is this a copycat killing?


Is a serial killer still on the loose? This will be the beginning of an arduous investigation that will take Wallace from Shrewsbury into Devon and then even further to Italy.