Maurice Seton was a famous mystery writer -- but no murder from his imagination could equal the ghastliness of his own death. When his grotesquely mutilated corpse is found in a drifting dinghy ripples of horror spread among his bizarre neighbours: the cruel and cynical drama critic the celebrated recluse the rakish young heir the terrified woman waiting for her killer in a lonely house... It is up to Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh and his extraordinary aunt to discover the shocking truth about Setons past -- before the plot takes another murderous turn.