Jon McGregor

On a still and frozen day between Christmas and New Year, a man's body is found lying in his ruined flat. As the state begins its detailed, dispassionate inquest, the man embarks on his last journey through a world he has not ventured into, alive, for years. In his wake, a series of fractured narratives emerge as his friends who look on from the shadows, keep vigil as the hours pass.

On a street in the North of England ordinary people, doing every day things, lead normal lives, often interconnecting yet never really connecting. But when a summer evening is shattered by a terrible event, those who witness it will never be the same again.

A teenage girl on holiday has gone missing in the hills at the heart of England. The villagers are called up to join the search, fanning out across the moors. Meanwhile, there is work that must still be done. As the seasons unfold there are secrets kept and exposed, small kindnesses and unanticipated betrayals.