Margot Lewis is a teacher at an exclusive high school in the English university town of Cambridge. In her spare time, she writes an advice column, тАЬDear AmyтАЭ, for the local newspaper.
When one of MargotтАЩs students, fifteen-year-old Katie, disappears, the school and the town fear the worst. And then Margot gets a тАЬDear AmyтАЭ letter unlike any of the ones sheтАЩs received before. ItтАЩs a desperate plea for rescue from a girl who says she is being held captive and in terrible dangerтАФa girl called Bethan Avery, who was abducted from the local area twenty years agoтАжand never found.
The letter matches a sample of BethanтАЩs handwriting that the police have kept on file since she vanished, and this shocking development in an infamous cold case catches the attention of criminologist Martin Forrester, who has been trying to find out what happened to her all those years ago. Spurred on by her concern for both Katie and the mysterious Bethan, Margot sets outтАФwith MartinтАЩs helpтАФto discover if the two cases are connected.
But then Margot herself becomes a target...