The most idyllic village in the prettiest of England's rural counties twitches in the grip of mystery when the Cowpers, an altogether respectable middle-aged couple, are discovered unbucolically dead on the kitchen floor in their own home. Their teenage daughter, meanwhile, has gone missing, and the headline of the local newspaper screams: "Where is Gemma?"The nasty event of course shocks the entire quiet Rutland village. It also stirs the ambitions of Alison, a young reporter for the Rutland Record who sees the double murder as her much-awaited opportunity to sell a big story to the national papers. What Alison does not foresee are the uncomfortable truths her investigation of the case will unfold, for nothing here is quite what it seems - not in the Cowpers' home or her own or any other in the picture-perfect world the quaint villagers share. Even pastoral Rutland has an underbelly, and rustic eccentrics like the spinsterly Miss Crabbe, who writes murder mysteries featuring predatory snails, prove to be less delightfully harmless than they at first appear. Read Less