When the body of a French woman washes up on a wild inlet off the Cornish coast, Brian Macalvie, divisional commander with the Devon-Cornwall police, is called in. While he stands in the Sicily Islands, Inspector Richard Jury --- 20 miles away on Land’s End --- is at The Old Success pub, sharing a drink with the legendary former CID detective Tom Brownell, a man renowned for solving every case he undertook. Except one. In the days following the mysterious slaying of the Parisian tourist, two other murders take place: first, a man is shot on a Northhamptonshire estate, then a holy duster turns up murdered at Exeter Cathedral in Devon. Macalvie, Jury and Bronwell set out to discover if these three killings, though very different in execution, are connected.