They make an oddly effective team?Inspector Douglas Quantrill, an old-fashioned country copper, and his deputy, Martin Tait, stuffed with the latest in policing theories and techniques, and with a sharp eye for both the ladies and the main chance. That eye gets wider when Quantrill?s young daughter comes home to recover from a bad break-up, but Tait?s attention soon shifts to Jasmine Woods, a seductive, sophisticated romance-writer. In a fit of masochism?and hoping, perhaps, that some glamour will rub off?Alison takes a job as Jasmine?s secretary, and thus is in the house when her employer is brutally murdered. For the moment, at least, shock shuts Alison?s mouth, but Tait and Quantrill find no shortage of potentially motivated suspects.