Criminal psychologist Nellie Prayle loves solving murders. The more complicated, the better. But when a professor of astronomy is found dead at Tekapo's Mt John Observatory during its internationally attended 50th-anniversary conference celebrations and Detective Jack Simmons calls on Nellie to help with the police investigation, she soon realises that this is not your typical murder - and nor are these your usual suspects. As Nellie and Jack venture into the Dark Sky Reserve in Aotearoa, New Zealand's beautiful Mackenzie Country, they uncover a universe of rivalries, infidelities and emotional turmoil that pushes people to the edge. International intrigue and a tangle of motives unfold against a glittering backdrop of bright stars in this gripping tale of crime and passion, and as Nellie knows only too well, nothing in the world of academia is straightforward ...