' If you were to ask me to tell you about my wife I would have to warn you at the outset that I don't know a great deal about her. Or at least not as much as I thought I did...' Alex is a solitary London lawyer who is deeply in love with his beautiful wife Rachel. When Rachel is brutally murdered one Midsummer Night in Oxford all of his happiness vanishes. Shrouded in shock & grief he returns to Oxford that winter & begins to try to piece together the mystery surrounding Rachel's death discovering in her wake a tangled web of sex & jealousy of would-be lovers & spiteful friends of blackmail & of revenge.