Ireland 1947. Seven weeks of relentless snow. Guard Eamon Foley is searching for a missing child.
At Toby Appleyard’s farm, he discovers the kitchen littered with dead cats. And the skeletal remains of a woman. Upstairs, Toby is dead in his bed.
But was it murder? Or natural causes brought on by the unusually prolonged bout of bitter weather? Were the cats accidentally locked in the house? Or were they deliberately used to devour the evidence of foul play? Because it was common knowledge that resentment against the Appleyards still festered amongst the tenants over something that happened twelve years ago.
The last time the Appleyards were seen alive was on New Year’s Day. And it was now March.
But the tenants were insistent that the severe snow kept every one of them from calling on the Appleyards in all that time. Guard Eamon Foley was struggling to believe that, but he was also struggling to find a shred of evidence to the contrary.