Fanny Davenport has lived at Darkwater ever since she was brought there as a young orphan. She both loves and detests the forbidding English estate on the moors, haunted by the death of its long-ago mistress. When the scream of a bird caught in the chimney pierces the gloom one night, she knows it to be a harbinger of violent things to come.  

It all begins when Fanny boards a ship to pick up two Chinese children who have been entrusted to her uncle€s care. But Adam Marsh, the handsome stranger who hands over the sister and brother, may be an imposter. Then the children€s elderly amah disappears. The reappearance of Adam Marsh only raises more questions. Can Fanny trust him? Is he her only ally against a cunning killer waiting to claim one more life?