It's a glorious spring morning in the village of Ashthorpe. Birds are singing, and sunlight is dancing on the river where Mary Gedge's dress drifts lazily in the shallows with flowers mingling in her hair. The scene is so altogether lovely that some locals think dreamily of Ophelia. Chief Inspector Quantrill has little patience for that kind of self-indulgence; he's got a murder to solve. With a loveless marriage and the certain knowledge that he's missed his best chance for romance, he's something of a prisoner of pragmatism. Mary Gedge may indeed have died for love of the wrong man, but in this muddy English market town, that man is unlikely to be a prince of Denmark.