Welbury was a quiet country town in the Thames Valley - until Linda Baines, the daughter of a local landowner's chauffeur, was found in a wood near her home. Had she also been raped or, as the forensic pathologist believed, been positioned to make it appear so? Was Linda merely a high-spirited fifteen-year-old, as both her father and her teachers thought, or was she an evil temptress who tried to seduce everyone she came into contact with, as several others maintained? The life of the town is turned upside down as the tragedy is used to settle old scores and casts suspicion on several members of the community.