Maddie Finn lives with her mother above a converted stable in the grounds of a big house owned by the gloomy Harold Delamore. It's their ‘cosy refuge against the world’ and Maddie's favourite task is to walk Sal, Mr Delamore's rare, prize-winning dog. But one day Maddie and her mother are given two months notice by the trouble-making Delia Delamore, home from her boarding school – or has she been expelled?

And when Maddie takes Sal for a walk the next morning, Delia comes too...into a dark alley, where a gang of kidnappers is waiting...

But who do they want?

Maddie Finn is a tense, exciting story of a difficult friendship by Garry Disher, bestselling author of The Divine Wind and The Bamboo Flute.