When a landslide in the dark days of a Shetland winter destroys a house in which the body of a mysterious woman in a red silk dress is found, Jimmy Perez becomes obsessed with identifying the woman and discovering how she actually died.

Hoping for a fresh start, an English family moves to the remote Shetland islands, eager to give their autistic son a better life. But when a young nanny's body is found hanging in the barn beside their home, rumors of her affair with the husband spread like wildfire. As suspicion and resentment of the family blazes in the community, detective Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate.