While scallop-dredging off the Isle of Man, the Manx Shearwater drags up a body tied at the ankles and weighed down, obviously not a simple case of drowning. The medical report reveals a grisly and brutal attack on the victim, but who is he? And what had he done to deserve such a fate?

As investigations begin, Cedric Levis, a local philanderer with an unsavoury reputation seems to be missing when letters forwarded to his hotel room in San Reno have been returned, along with a bill for the room he never claimed. Could the murdered man be Cedric Levis? If so, who stayed in that room?

Under the pretence of a vacation, Chief Inspector Littlejohn is invited by his old friend, Archdeacon Kinrade, to unofficially assist with the murder investigation. Kinrade is certain the man accused of the murder is innocent, so Inspector Littlejohn must work to uncover the truth behind the murder and find who took Mr Levis’s hotel room that night. But with the mysterious and malevolent stories surrounding the Cursing Stones, will Littlejohn be able to separate fact from fiction?