Investigating the murder of a County Wexford priest in 1957, Detective Inspector St. John Strafford navigates harsh winter weather and the community's culture of silence to expose an aristocratic family's dangerous secrets.

Nervous spinster Charlotte Vale is stunted from growing up under the heel of her puritanical Boston Brahmin mother and remains convinced of her own unworthiness until a kindly psychiatrist gives her the confidence to venture out into the world on a South American cruise. Onboard, she finds her footing with the help of an unhappily married man. Their thwarted love affair may help Charlotte break free of her mother's grip, but will she find fulfillment as well as independence?