Sophie Rivers is not enjoying her MEd course at the University of the West Midlands. Maybe it s just too long since her first degree or because she s missing love-of-her-life Mike Lowden. Sophie confides in excellent lecturer Carla Pentowski but there s something strange about Carla s past - or lack of it. When some of her students start to behave oddly, Sophie talks to her old friend, Superintendent Chris Groom. But he has news of his own: the death on his patch of first one Malay girl, then another. Then Carla disappears. The nearer Sophie gets to solving the puzzle, the more unlikely it seems that she ll escape alive...