It rains all the time in 15-year-old Annie's West Coast town. But when her neighbour blows up his house and a dead body is found floating in the river, suddenly Annie's isolated community becomes a hub of excitement. Add in the threatened closure of the mine, with her dad's job in limbo, a bank robbery in Christchurch and a dangerously attractive new boy in town, and you have all the ingredients for a tense thriller. But Annie is holding on to secrets too.
The gloomy weather adds to the suspense, and Annie's and Jack's budding romance, based on a shared love of horses, hits some rocky patches as the story builds to a dramatic climax.