The small town of Carrick, in the middle of Ireland, is a big change for Ashling Butler, museum curator, fiddle-player and incurable puzzle-solver. Ashling comes back from England to take up a job in her childhood home. Visiting the North family’s estate, she discovers the murdered body of Rose Martin, part-time secretary in the County Museum. Encouraged, somewhat alarmingly, by the ghost of Lady Molly North, Ashling pursues the mystery of Rose’s death. She is helped along the way by her friend, Lucy; by Jerry Cassidy, the detective in charge; and by knowledge of plants – her own grasp of plant-lore and the more practical skills of the handsome but curt horticulturalist, Conor Foster. By the time she has uncovered the secrets that drove a murderer to kill again, Ashling is also presented with another secret – the identity of the third witch of Carrick’s legend.