Following a string of disastrous house-sitting assignments, and with troubles in her recent personal life, Thea Osborne is understandably apprehensive about her latest commission: a month in an isolated farmhouse with only an assortment of animals, including her loyal spaniel Hepzie, for company. After Thea spends her first few days exploring the area and meeting some of the local characters, the weather turns extreme, and so do events. She finds a man lying dead in a snow-filled field, but by the time the police arrive, the body has gone. Although no one believes her story, amateur detective Thea is convinced that something criminal has happened, and continues the investigations alone. When she finds the man again, still dead but mysteriously returned to his own cottage, the bizarre case takes another sinister twist.