Simla 1922. While the rest of India bakes in the hot season, up in the pine-scented coolness of the Himalayan hills, the English have recreated a vision of home. Here are half-timbered houses, amateur theatricals, gymkhanas and a glittering vice-regal court for the socialites. The summer capital of the British Raj is fizzing with the energy of the jazz age.<BR>It is toward this delightful country that detective Joe Sandilands is heading as the guest of Sir George Jardine, the governor of Bengal. But when Joe's travelling companion, a Russian opera singer, is shot dead at his side in the governor's car on the road up to Simla, he finds himself plunged into a murder investigation. Confronted by the mystery of an identical unsolved killing a year before, Joe realizes that Sir George's hospitality comes at a high price.<BR>As Joe begins to unravel a mystery which has its roots in the aftermath of the First World War, he discovers that behind the sparkling facade of social life in Simla lies a trail of murder, vice and blackmail. Someone in this close-knit community has a sinister secret and the nearer Joe comes to uncovering it, the nearer he comes to his own death.