It was, Adam Dalgliesh thought, uncommonly inconsiderate, if not negligent, of his doctors to reconcile him so thoroughly to death and then change their minds.

Unsettled by this brush with death and disenchanted with his job in the Force, Commander Adam Dalgliesh accepts an invitation to visit an old friend, the chaplain of a private home for the disabled, only to discover that his host has died suddenly. When other deaths follow, Dalgliesh senses that what had been founded as an abode of love is rapidly becoming a staging post for death.