A spate of robberies targeting elderly women is disturbing enough, but especially so in a town as peaceful and sedate as Leek. Then one attack turns to murder, and DI Joanna Piercy is called to the eerily named Spite Hall.

The body of Nan Lawrence has been found bludgeoned to death, lying over the tapestry she was in the process of embroidering. But what could have made the robbers move from simple theft to murder?

When Joanna calls on Nan's neighbours she is surprised to find that they are none other than the old lady's estranged brother and his teenage grandson, neither of whom seem particularly willing to co-operate with her enquiries.

Slowly, aided by her colleague Mark Korpanski, Joanna unravels a mystery—the tangled threads of which are rooted years in the past.