The victim was certainly deserving of death. But not the hard, cruel death that he found. No-one deserved that. But the murderer made him suffer it, nevertheless. And the murderer went unsuspected. Someone else would pay the price society demanded for the crime. An innocent woman would pay, and the murderer was willing to arrange other, more 'accidental' deaths to ensure it. But then Arthur Crook took a hand.

Big, fat, crafty and cocksure Arthur Crook is a solicitor — but the most unorthodox one it is possible to imagine. And he has two guiding principles only: his client is always innocent — because he says so — and come hell or high water he always gets his man. But even these two hitherto immutable principles were placed in some peril this time — in what turned out to be one of Crook's most baffling cases.