Paris, 1900. Comte de Landois has ordered his wife Marguerite to travel from Paris, to join him in the Loire valley. Her journey into the pastoral quiet is shattered by the appearance of a dead man on the railway tracks. Who is he, and why does Marguerite's young travelling companion pale when he sees him? When the Comte presents Marguerite with an adopted baby, and his sudden friendship with local clerics imposes new rules and regulations on her behavior, things start to take a sinister and troubling turn. A girl goes missing and so Marguerite calls in Chief Inspector Durand to help hunt her down. Intriguing, chilling, and lyrical, Sacred Ends is a rich and complex page-turner of a thriller that brings the Belle Epoque to life before soaring to its astonishing conclusion.