As the first frosts settle in late November, a woman’s body is discovered in the marshes on the town’s outskirts—a place steeped in eerie silence and the stench of decay. Her corpse, half-sunken into the soft earth and veiled in fallen leaves, with her long hair carefully combed, presents a macabre yet strangely beautiful sight. The dead woman is the wife of the local doctor. In a town where little ever happens, the discovery sends shockwaves through the community. A storm of speculation, rumor, and whispered gossip begins to swirl. Nearly everyone knew the woman.

Yet the novel is not a crime story at heart. Instead, it traces the fates of the town’s inhabitants: the doctor’s mistress gives birth to a stillborn child, and her confused mother wanders the streets with an empty pram. Milada, a young widow and single mother, works in a chicken processing plant. Her daughter Anna, who despises chicken, must eat it daily. An outsider at school, Anna harbors a secret—one that connects her to the dead woman in the swamp. Then there is Hana, a mysterious figure who returns to a long-abandoned riverside villa, determined to uncover the truth behind an old family feud. The lives of these and other characters intersect and unravel, like high-voltage power lines snapping in the wind-swept fields beyond the town.