After a teenage girl's perplexing suicide, a classmate receives a series of tapes that unravel the mystery of her tragic choice.

Brother Cadfael is a twelfth-century Anglo-Welsh monk. A retired crusader disappointed in love, and now a herbalist in charge of the gardens of Shrewsbury Abbey, Brother Cadfael is often called on to solve murders and other crimes in and around Shrewsbury, Shropshire, in the border country where England meets Wales.

Former police officer Darby Spencer and her mystery novelist mother Victoria Spencer have opposite personalities but still embark on the unlikeliest of ventures: becoming partners in a private detective agency. They are mistaken as sisters as they tackle puzzling cases in Alder Bluffs.

A tenacious mother unravels the complex mystery surrounding the 1989 disappearance of the daughter she placed for adoption.