When an unconscious woman is found next to the body of a dead man, the lives of several people on a local estate in a Surrey town are affected. Things like this don't usually happen on their suburban estate.

Nick Delmar is a working as a financial journalist on a small local paper in NW Surrey. Inevitably, in addition to writing his column, he gets sent out on stories and covers the murder story. He is bowled over when he first sees Tina, the woman injured in the dramatic incident on the Hillside Estate.

A few days later, Martin, a 10 year old boy, goes missing from the same estate. Is the boy connected in some way to the earlier crime? While reporting on the story, Nick befriends Carol, the boy's mother, and tries to support her. How does she cope with her son's disappearance, and what happens when the estranged father of the child comes back into her life? What happened to Martin before his disappearance, and how his life was made a misery by an aggressive bully, is eventually revealed.

As Nick becomes embroiled in the lives of the people on the estate, his investigation of a criminal leads him into dangerous territory, putting his career and life in jeopardy.

An engaging narrative voice ... Donna Condon, editor Piatkus Books, on Tainted Tree.