Thomas Mallen of High Banks Hall had many sons, most of them illegitimate. But to all of them he passed on his mark; this was a distinctive flash of white hair running down to the left temple, and known as the Mallen Streak. It was said in the surrounding Northumberland countryside that those who bore the streak seldom reached old age or died in bed, and that nothing good ever came of a Mallen. This novel is the first of a trilogy that will follow the lives of the Mallens through succeeding generations.