‘Queenie’ Mab is an ex-inmate of the notorious Charity Island prison, currently employed as a poorly-paid trouble-shooter for the Silbury transnational company. She cheerfully accepts the opportunity to make some extra money when security officer Ezekiel Rivers of the rival Williams Corporation offers her and her companion Lump some freelance work accompanying a party up to the remote highlands. The client is Rachel Zampigli, travelling to the backwoods with her uncle to witness the recovery of her father’s remains from a mass grave created after a land-clearance massacre fifteen years previously.

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Mab discovers she has already met the uncle many years ago when they were both involved in an attempt to avoid being sent to Charity Island. Faced with his current dislike of ex-Islanders, locals who do not want the unhappy past stirred up, and other unwelcome discoveries to be made in the distant woodlands, earning the extra money is not exactly going to be easy.