The first guests have arrived at a large Scottish mansion. They are members of a West End theatre company gathered together for a reading of a controversial new play. Before the evening is over the playwright is savagely murdered, and Inspector Lynley must face the most testing case of his Scotland Yard career.
Lady Helen Clyde, the woman Lynley loves, is a suspect. Nearly blinded by emotions of passion and jealousy, beset at every turn by deadly family scandals, fierce theatrical rivalries and shattering secrets, Lynley finds himself walking a perilous line between the clinical detachment of his job and the intensity of his feelings.
