DCI Pascal d'Acre and his team are again drawn into a web of deceit, which this time surrounds the deaths of two young men in the hills above a remote Shropshire village. The investigation leads them to a hermit who lives off-grid on a Welsh hillside, at Hightop Farm. The information that they uncover leads Dr. Rachel Salt, the head of anaesthetics development at a research centre in Oxford, looking in a new direction too. Rachel's ongoing search for new anaesthetics also leads her to the Amazon, with Pascal in tow under the guise of a much-needed holiday. The holiday, however, has a sting in its tail, making Pascal use all of his detection skills in an attempt to avert a disaster. *Re-titled from "The House at Hightop Farm" with new cover artwork in 2023.