Sally Jupp was a sly and sensuous young woman who used her body and her brains to make her way up the social ladder. Now she lies across her bed with dark bruises from a strangler's fingers forever marring her lily-white throat. Someone has decided that the wages of sin should be death...and it is up to Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh to find who that someone is. (back cover).

Responding to an old friend's call, Commander Adam Dalgliesh travels to Toynton Grange, a convalescence home in Dorset, where he finds his friend dead and, himself weakened by a recent illness, encounters multiple murder and malicious intrigue.