The day Jerry Hunt meets Charlotte Frost is the day he decides to abandon his rebellious, criminal ways. Despite the fact that Jerry's been to prison and has vowed never to return, he continues to run a successful scam with his friend Pete in which Jerry sweet-talks a homeowner at the front door, while Pete breaks in at the back. But the day Jerry enters Charlotte's house, he sees something in her smile that makes him determined to stay clean.

In many ways, Charlotte, too, would like to leave her past behind and start over. Widowed after two years of marriage to Rupert, she is faced with the distrust and suspicions of her departed husband's family. But when Rupert's troubled granddaughter, Imogen, needs a place to stay, Charlotte agrees to take her in. Jerry soon befriends Imogen, and with her help he persuades Charlotte to let him renovate her garden. As their lives become more and more entangled, lies and deceits from both their pasts begin to surface, and on a night none of them will ever forget, Charlotte disappears.

A novel of subtle suspense and creeping tension, A Case to Answer is effortlessly crafted crime fiction, in which human weakness and vulnerability lead to secrets, lies and tragedy.