Alison, Roger and Gwyn become trapped when the discovery of a box of old plates releases and old power that is exercised through the re-enactment of a triangle of love and betrayal and murder. Tensions fracture their friendship along lines of family and class and race in the stiflingly claustrophobic confines of a Welsh valley. Garner lets dialogue do a lot of the work, but the passages describing Gwyn's attempt to climb out of the valley and escape is as intense and horrible as even the celebrated tunnel scenes from Weirdstone. Emotions are scraped raw and bitter, but it's the increasingly loathsome Roger's hidden hurt that is the key to their release in the end. A powerful, resonant classic.