Combe Island off the Cornish coast has a bloodstained history but now, privately owned, it offers respite to over-stressed, distinguished visitors. But the peace of Combe is violated when one of the visitors is bizarrely murdered. Adam Dalgliesh is called in to solve the mystery quickly and discreetly, but at a difficult time for him and his depleted team. Hardly have they begun to unravel the complicated motives of the suspects than there is a second brutal killing and the whole investigation is jeopardised when Dalgliesh is faced with a danger more insidious and as potentially fatal as murder.