When her best friend's wedding in the mountains of Argyll ends in tragedy, reporter Shona Sandison is drawn into a mystery decades in the making. As she unravels the deadly secret that binds a group of friends, Shona discovers a hidden crime in a rural town that links a missing teen, a sinister political elite and an occult plot.

Investigative journalist Shona Sandison is attending the wedding of her closest friend and former colleague, Vivienne. But the night before the wedding, Vivienne''s reclusive school friend, Dan, jumps from a roof to his death. Shona is the only witness to the suicide - and so the only person who saw the occult tattoos covering Dan''s body, and heard the unsettling, mystical phrases he was uttering.Compelled to look further into the tragic incident, Shona sets off on a quest to find out why Dan killed himself and what happened to Vivienne''s missing brother 20 years prior. Despite knowing that investigating Viv''s family will mean she could lose her friend forever, Shona travels to a small, forgotten town in the north of England to investigate an insular group of classmates who have held a dark secret for decades.Haunting and hypnotic, The Hollow Tree is a return to Philip Miller''s dark world of subterfuge, betrayal, and fragile justice.