Meet Cordelia Gray: twenty-two, tough, intelligent and now sole inheritor of the Pryde Detective Agency. Her first assignment finds her hired by Sir Ronald Callender to investigate the death of his son Mark, a young Cambridge student found hanged in mysterious circumstances. Required to delve into the hidden secrets of the Callender family, Cordelia soon realizes it is not a case of suicide, and that the truth is entirely more sinister.
"P.D. James is unbeatable." - Ottawa Citizen
"P.D. James is an addictive writer, [with] a quality of intelligence, a genuine curiosity about character, and an ability to describe the density of little known lives." - Anita Brookner
"One of the most compulsive and acutely observed thrillers of the year--a why-dunnit, rather than a who-dunnit; a study of the complex motives that make up the cold mind of a killer." - Daily Express
"James is assuredly the most gifted crime novelist writing in English today" - The Toronto Star
"A top-rated puzzle of peril that holds you all the way." - The New York Times