Viv's career with the renowned mercenary company Rackam's Ravens isn't going as planned. Wounded and packed off to recuperate in the sleepy town of Murk, she's so far from the action that she worries she'll never be able to return to it. What's a thwarted soldier of fortune to do ? Spending her hours at a struggling bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted - even though it may be exactly what she needs. But a suspicious traveller in grey, a gnome with a chip on her shoulder, a summer fling, and an improbable number of skeletons soon prove Murk to be more eventful than Viv could ever have expected ...