In rural Northumberland, England's northern-most county, John Tobin has created a near idyllic lifestyle, quiet, gentle, a bit like himself in fact. Then one day his great friend and mentor, Alan Harper turns it all upside down. The sudden and unexplained death of Alan's wife, Rosemary, and the appearance of a threatening stranger will change the course of Tobin's quiet existence. In trying to sort out his friend's tangled life Tobin and Alan's petulant stepdaughter find themselves on a continental journey of discovery and danger; a race across the French countryside that threatens their own lives while trying to protect Alan's. A Web of Lives, a gentle 'why dunnit?', is the first in an occasional series about John Tobin and his life in Northumberland,