Sally Jupp came from the village home for unmarried mothers and seemed ideal to help Mrs Maxie run a house and look after her invalid husband. But the real Sally was very different from the docile, repentant character she seemed to be. When a murder occurs, Chief Inspector Dalgliesh arrives.
Maurice Seton was a famous mystery writer--but no murder from his imagination could equal the ghastliness of his own death. When his grotesquely mutilated corpse is found in a drifting dinghy, ripples of horror spread among his bizarre neighbours: the cruel and cynical drama critic, the celebrated recluse, the rakish young heir, the terrified woman waiting for her killer in a lonely house... It is up to Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh and his extraordinary aunt to discover the shocking truth about Seton's past--before the plot takes another murderous turn.