Ten-year-old Katie Blasko is missing. Detective Sergeant Ellen Destry, alert to rumours of a paedophile ring operating on the Peninsula, is thinking abduction. Her colleagues are thinking bad family, truancy. Her boss is thinking about the media. And everyone, including Ellen, is wondering whether she’s good enough to handle this without D. I. Challis. But Hal Challis is a thousand kilometres away, watching his father die. Ellen Destry’s running the show on her own. And if she’s right, Katie Blasko may be running out of time.