Beyond high iron gates fastened shut with a length of chain, lies the stark, beautiful Trawbawn. Here, haunted by a dark, mysterious past and largely ignored by the villagers of nearby Skibbereen, lives the frail Lydia Beauchamp. But old Ma Beauchamp's private existence is interrupted when a stranger arrivesa young man called Adam who wanders into the vast grounds of Trawbawn and becomes one of Lydia's most welcome contacts with the outside world. When Lydia sets her new confidante a challenge, he eagerly acceptsAdam must travel to Dublin to find her estranged daughter. But it is a task tinged with an air of menace. For what terrible past has driven a daughter from her mother? And what true motive lies behind Adam's generous act? Soon the unlikely friends are entwined in a deadly game, and a pursuit born of an old lady's desire for peace mutates into a terrible, relentless need for revenge