An isolated Scottish mansion is the venue for a reading of a controversial new play by a West End theatre company. But on the very first evening the playwright is savagely murdered & Inspector Thomas Lynley faces the most testing case of his career. For one of the suspects is Lady Helen Clyde the woman Lynley loves. & as he attempts to untangle the family scandals fierce theatrical rivalries & long-buried secrets that beset the case Lynley struggles to balance the clinical detachment of his job with the intensity of his feelings.