Moving into an upmarket new home in Leeds, rising radio star Matt Harper is shocked to find the skeleton of a small child in the attic.

His grisly discovery takes him back to the summer of 1969, when he lived with his aunt only a few streets away, reawakening dim, disquieting memories from his childhood.

While Detective Charlie Peace heads up the nominal police investigation into the bones, Matt revisits the past in an attempt to solve the mystery himself. Tracking down the other members of a gang of local children he’d once belonged to, he gradually unearths a shared secret that has laid buried ever since. Were the bones in the attic the result of a tragic accident, or has time concealed a more sinister truth?

‘Exceptionally well-plotted and written with a stylistic modesty that does the story proud’ Literary Review

‘Barnard never disappoints’ The Times

‘Another fine crime novel by the master of the genre’ Irish Times