Recruited into MI5 against a backdrop of the Cold War in 1972, Cambridge student Serena Frome, a compulsive reader, is assigned to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer whose politics align with those of the government, a situation that is compromised when she falls in love with him.

"Jack Haldean's newly-wedded bliss is disrupted by a series of shocking revelations in this gripping historical mystery. When an old schoolfriend of Jack's wife Betty witnesses a disturbing vision in the garden of a smart suburban house, Jack is intrigued. Just what did Jenny Langton see beneath the cedar tree at Saunder's Green that frightened her so much she fainted on the spot? Jack's subsequent enquiries stir up a hornet's nest of repressed emotions...