Back from a perfect week walking in Snowdonia with Dougie Hynde, Campion's colleague from the police force, DI Campion is straight back into the swing of it with a car phone call directing him to investigate a 'fracas' on London Road and then just as he was settling in to a bit of admin in his Oakham 'office', the Wheatsheaf pub, he is approached by a perfect stranger who gives him a brief life history and then informs him that it's unlikely he will be back tomorrow as he will probably be dead by then. Campion can ignore it, of course, but something tells him that there is more here than meets the eye. Besides which Val, his wife, has her sister over to stay. No contest. Campion takes on the case.