• A wealthy businessman has died under suspicious circumstances.
  
• A Christmas with the family provides more drama than could be expected.
  
• A girl accuses the hospital of killing her grandmother.
  
• In sixteenth-century Scotland, the death of a clansman is not what it first appears.

From the modern-day investigations of Inspector C.D. Sloan and his enthusiastic, all-too-constant, but not very helpful sidekick Constable Crosby of the Calleshire C.I.D; to the travails of Henry Tyler of the Foreign Office in the 1930s; to Sheriff Rhuaraidh Macmillan of sixteenth-century Scotland: Catherine Aird's latest collection of literate tales takes the reader through the full range of crime and punishment.
--Jacket.