The trial of Ellen Gray for murder comes early in the story, She is defended by Antony Maitland Q.C. and the jury's verdict surprises both Ellen and Antony

This murder has been committed in 1965. But it is evident to Antony that its motivation derives from a bizarre double-murder in 1946, when a woman and her lover had been shot dead by a jealous husband returning from the war; at least, that was the historical record.

Antony began to doubt the whole history. He began to think it odd that two murderers should have been found among the same small group, even if the crimes were nearly twenty years apart. So it is on this small group. the tight-knit clique who were friends in the forties, that his attention increasingly falls.

Then Antony Maitland moves from the role of barrister to that of detective, as he has done before. Supported by his wife Jenny, aided by his friend Roger Farrell (and as always derided by his formidable uncle. Sir Nicholas Harding Q.C.), he seeks solutions to the murders quite different from past convictions and police thinking. And at last, in a surprising and convincing denouement, he finds an answer.