Introducing Oxford-based private investigator Jennie Redhead in the first of a brand-new mystery series. Oxford, 1974. Seventeen-year-old Linda Corbet is missing. She disappeared a few nights before when she was supposed to be visiting a school friend. Lindas mother Mary doesnt think her daughter has run away as the police and her husband believe. She is convinced Linda was murdered and she has hired private investigator Jennie Redhead to find out what really happened to her.The only clue Jennie has to go on is a fragment of an obscure 17th century poem she finds in Lindas bedroom: Or will you, like a cold and errant coward/Abandon all and make a shivering turn. But from that one clue Jennies investigations will lead her to a secret Oxford society and a hidden world of violence, excess and desire which lies behind the citys dreaming spires.