It's snowdrop season and Maggie Eliot is on a mission. The previous summer three people she knew died. The coroner ruled the first a suicide, the second a murder and the third an accident. Around the same time as the deaths, a number of very valuable snowdrops disappeared. Maggie is convinced that all three victims were murdered and that she knows who was behind both the killings and the snowdrop thefts. It was Nat Marsh. A highly regarded personage in the world of galanthophiles, as snowdrop collectors are called, Marsh is famous for breeding and propagating the small white flowers. He auctions his rarest specimens on eBay for hundreds of pounds and is rumoured not to be above poaching a new discovery.

Believing that others are as unscrupulous as himself, Marsh also keeps the location of his own snowdrop garden a closely-guarded secret. Her husband Thomas, who is the 28th Baron Raynham, accuses Maggie of being a crackpot when she voices her suspicions. The police detective she knows, Inspector Willis, also has no time for her concerns and even Maggie must admit she has no real evidence to back up her beliefs. But Maggie has embraced the Raynham family motto: Numquam cede. Never give up. She is determined to find justice for Marsh's victims and in the process recover the stolen snowdrops. Whatever it takes.