Eleven winters in the dark. One voice on the tape. What if the woman you declared dead was never in the loch at all?

Some secrets are buried too deep in the Highland peat to stay quiet forever...

When disgraced Edinburgh detective DCI Callum Vance is transferred north to the remote Scottish Highlands, he expects a quiet exile among the mist-shrouded mountains of Wester Ross. Instead, he is dragged straight back into the one case that nearly destroyed his career.

Eleven years ago, twenty-one-year-old criminology student Morag Kerr vanished on a lonely road beside Loch Maree. No body was ever recovered, the inquiry was abruptly shut down by the Crown Office, and Vance was forced to sign the deposition declaring her dead.

Now, on a freezing November morning, new forensic evidence surfaces on the edge of the loch—proving beyond doubt that Morag Kerr has been kept alive in the dark for over a decade.

Forced to team up with Morag’s fiercely intelligent sister, forensic pathologist Dr. Isla Kerr, Vance follows a chilling trail of murder and blackmail that reaches from a retired detective’s isolated hunting lodge to the highest corridors of power in Scotland. As bodies begin to fall and a relentless killer closes in, Vance and Isla must uncover the truth behind The Heather Syndicate—before the Highland waters wash the slate clean for good.

A dark, atmospheric, and utterly gripping Scottish crime thriller packed with heart-stopping twists. Perfect for fans of Ian Rankin, Ann Cleeves, Val McDermid, and Peter May.