Called out by Scotland Yard into the teeth of a violent blizzard, Inspector Ian Rutledge finds himself confronted with one of the most savage murders he has ever encountered. Rutledge might have expected such unspeakable carnage on the World War I battlefields, where he?d lost much of his soul?and his sanity?but not in an otherwise peaceful farm kitchen in remote Urskdale. Someone has murdered the Elcott family at their table without the least sign of struggle. Was the killer someone the young family knew and trusted? When the victims are tallied the local police are in for another shock: One of the Elcotts? children, a boy named Josh, is missing. Now the Inspector must race to uncover a murderer and to save a child before he?s silenced by the merciless elements?or the even colder hands of a killer.