Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh had been looking forward to a quiet holiday at his aunt's cottage on Monksmere Head one of the furthest-flung spots on the remote Suffolk coast With nothing to do other than enjoy long wind-swept walks tea in front of the crackling wood fire & hot buttered toast Dalgliesh was relishing the thought of a well-earned break However all hope of peace is soon shattered by murder The mutilated body of a local crime writer Maurice Seaton floats ashore in a drifting dinghy to drag Adam Dalgliesh into a new & macabre investigation Set on the remote Suffolk coast this is a thrilling work of crime fiction possessing all of the qualities which distinguish PD James as a novelist Award-winning PD James (author of Death Comes to Pemberley A Certain Justice & Children of Men) plots a complex story of murder mystery & suspicion The novel was adapted into a hit film in 1993 starring Roy Marsden Simon Chandler & Kenneth Colley