When Jessica Randal, a West End actress, accompanied her biographer husband to the country for a month's research, she fully expected to be bored, especially since her leg was in plaster following an accident on their honeymoon. Yet within a week of their arrival she'd learned they were renting the house of a murder victim, and that there was an unknown rapist at large, who was obsessed with nursery rhymes.

The different levels of the village, both geographical and social, seemed equally at risk and, increasingly, Jessica herself, apparently singled out by the rapist. Since she might have met the man socially, Jessica regarded all her neighbours with growing suspicion. Still worse, there'd been no trouble in the village before they came, and she began to wonder, as others already did, how well she knew her new husband.

Once again, Chief Inspector Webb and Sergeant Jackson pit their wits against a cunning adversary. By the time they unmask him, the innocent world of nursery rhymes has, for the village of Westridge, been contaminated for ever.