Doug runs through the snow to tell Heather he has found the body of a missing guest.

A group of friends boards a train to Loch Corrin for their annual New Year's Eve reunion.

A red stag leaps onto the road and stares down Doug's car carrying the arriving guests.

Heather and Doug search the vast Loch Corrin estate after a guest goes missing in a blizzard.

Heather and Doug discover a body at the waterfall with blood and dark marks around the neck.

Heather calls the police to report the murder but learns fierce weather prevents officers from reaching the lodge.

Mark corners Miranda, grabs at her, and insists he has a secret to reveal about Julien.

Miranda discovers Julien and Katie having sex together in the sauna.

Miranda confronts Julien about his affair and threatens to expose his insider trading scheme to powerful contacts.

Heather breaks into an abandoned shelter, discovers hidden cocaine packages, and Iain knocks her unconscious.

Doug shoots Iain to free Heather, and Iain confesses he witnessed the murder but stayed silent to protect himself.

Miranda opens a box in Emma's room and finds all the belongings stolen from her over the years.

Emma strangles Miranda on the bridge by the waterfall and pushes her body over the edge.

Emma intercepts the detective's phone call, retrieves the stolen rifle, and points it at Katie.

Heather shoves Katie out of Emma's line of fire and takes the bullet, saving Katie's life.

A group of university friends reunites at the remote Loch Corrin estate in the Scottish Highlands for their annual New Year's Eve trip. When a guest goes missing and is later found dead at the waterfall, lodge manager Heather must investigate alone as a snowstorm cuts the estate off from police. Tensions within the friend group explode when Miranda discovers her husband Julien's affair with her oldest friend Katie. The investigation takes a violent turn when Heather uncovers a drug smuggling operation run by Iain, who confesses he witnessed the murder but said nothing to protect himself. Miranda's killer is revealed to be Emma, who had stalked and obsessed over Miranda for years before strangling her on the bridge. Emma then attempts to shoot Katie, but Heather intervenes and takes the bullet, saving Katie and her unborn child.

The murder of Miranda and its investigation at Loch Corrin.

Emma is thrilled to have booked Loch Corrin for the group's New Year's Eve reunion and wants it to go perfectly.

The group arrives at the lodge and discovers an Icelandic couple is also staying at the supposedly exclusive estate.

Heather tells the guests about the former lodge that burned down a century ago, killing 24 people.

Miranda flirts with Doug at dinner to make Julien jealous and reignite their strained relationship.

Miranda interrupts Doug in his cottage to ask him to light a fire in the lodge.

The group stays up late drinking and reminiscing about Miranda's mysterious stalker from their university years.

Emma privately reveals she has always known about Mark's long-standing crush on Miranda and is unbothered by it.

During a morning run, Miranda stumbles across scorched animal bones and then a couple having sex in the woods.

Emma kills a deer cleanly during the stag-stalking excursion, proving herself the group's most skilled shot.

During Truth or Dare, Miranda admits to having slept with another person at the table besides Julien.

Miranda dares Katie to submerge herself in the freezing loch at night.

Doug relives the moment in Afghanistan when he froze and failed to stop a boy carrying explosives, causing his squad's deaths.

Emma secretly overhears Miranda and Giles discussing their past affair and Giles's fear that Samira will find out.

A drunk Miranda goes to Doug's cottage, kisses him, and Doug firmly rejects her.

Emma is convicted of manslaughter rather than murder and sentenced to only four years in prison.

Emma carefully plans the New Year's Eve trip to Loch Corrin, though complications arise immediately when the supposedly exclusive estate turns out to be shared with another couple. Over the first evening, rivalries and resentments simmer as the friends drink, reminisce, and flirt, with Miranda using Doug to provoke Julien and retelling her stalker story as a party anecdote that masks real fear. During the stag-stalking excursion, quiet and organised Emma proves herself the most skilled hunter of the group, a subtle foreshadowing of her true nature. As New Year's Eve escalates into drinking games and dares, the cracks in every relationship grow harder to ignore. Doug is wrestling with his own trauma in isolation, drinking away the sounds of the party while reliving the worst moment of his military service. By the novel's end, the criminal justice system fails Miranda when Emma is convicted of only manslaughter and handed a strikingly light sentence.

The secrets, tensions, and moments that set the stage for murder.

Doug hints that he has taken human lives beyond animals, suggesting a deeply buried secret from his past.

Heather reflects on her first impressions of the tense friend group and compares them to the relaxed Icelandic couple.

Miranda privately admits her stalker knows her darkest secrets, including a pregnancy scare, shoplifting, and plagiarism.

Miranda notices the back of Julien's hair is damp and realises he is lying about where he has been.

Heather searches Doug's name online and immediately regrets what she discovers about his past.

Nick confronts Miranda at the ruins of the former lodge about her outing him to his parents years ago.

Heather discovers that Doug was arrested and imprisoned for nearly strangling a man to death in a bar.

Katie secretly takes a pregnancy test in her room on New Year's Eve and discovers she is pregnant.

The clock strikes midnight and Miranda senses a cold distance and darkness radiating from Julien toward her.

Doug explains to Heather that he nearly killed a stranger in a bar who blamed him for a fellow soldier's death.

The reader learns that Katie and Julien first slept together after bumping into each other alone at a bar.

Heather learns the Highland Ripper has been arrested elsewhere, confirming the murderer must be someone inside the lodge.

Emma's full history as a serial stalker is revealed, including changing her name and pursuing Mark solely to reach Miranda.

Iain tells Heather and Doug the killer had lighter hair, ruling out Samira and significantly narrowing the suspects.

Heather wakes in hospital surrounded by family and friends and resolves to leave Loch Corrin and return to the city.

Beneath the surface of the friends' reunion lie secrets that reshape the entire story once uncovered. Heather and the reader piece together Doug's violent past through his own guarded hints, a shocking online search, and his eventual confession about a bar fight rooted in survivor's guilt from Afghanistan. Katie carries a private crisis of her own when a pregnancy test confirms she is carrying Julien's child, a secret she hides from everyone. Crucial revelations about Nick's betrayal by Miranda, Julien's lies about his whereabouts, and Katie and Julien's affair expose how little the friends truly know one another. Emma's identity as Miranda's obsessive long-term stalker is the novel's most explosive revelation, reframing every earlier scene involving her. The story closes with Heather choosing to rejoin the world of the living, leaving behind the wilderness exile she had used to punish herself for surviving grief.