Judith and Mick live at New Scar House with their large family. Bob and Dick live at the farm at Ravensgill with their grandmother. The children go the same school and are acquainted, but know nothing of their familial relationship to one another - broken off 40 years before when a man died and another, suspected of his murder, disappeared. The book begins with a letter arriving at New Scar House, prompting an immediate reply to Ravensgill. It awakens curiosity in the younger members of both families. Despite their elders" peculiar and obstinate silence, they begin to investigate... "The master of contemporary English writing for children." Times Literary Supplement