Reviewers often noted the fast paced style of the novel as it flashes back and forth between two plot lines, a contemporary crime in 2007 and the investigation of a cold case from 1984.

"[1] During the infamous UK miners' strike of 1984–1985, a wealthy young heiress and her infant son are kidnapped in Fife, before a botched payoff leaves her dead and the child missing.

Twenty-two years later, DI Karen Pirie, an expert on cold cases, interviews a journalist who may have found a clue to the enigma while on vacation in Tuscany.

Fellow mine workers and even his own wife believed that Mick Prentice notoriously broke ranks and left to join a group of 'scab' strike breakers far south in Nottingham, but recent evidence suggests that his disappearance might not have been as simple as that.

"[4] Brandon Robshaw of British newspaper The Independent called the book "cleverly told" and "smoothly readable," adding that the only drawback was that McDermid "likes her heroine a bit too much ... [d]umpy and unglamorous on the outside, but sexy and with a razor-sharp mind.

[7] Kim Sweetman of The Courier Mail was less enthusiastic, observing that "compared with some of the other work of this master writer, it can be a little slow and convoluted" though it was still a good crime novel.

[3] Marilyn Stasio of The New York Times had a similar problem with A Darker Domain, remarking that although McDermid is talented, the multiple plot lines were simply too much.