To Jan Coverdale, daughter of one explorer and half-sister of another, the history and legends of Peru had been familiar since childhood. But when her marriage broke down and her half-brother Edward invited her home for Christmas, they became all at one more personal and more threatening. It began with a body dressed in tramp's clothing, with incongruous green sequins on his lapel. He looked disconcertingly like Edward, whose wallet was in his pocket—but hadn't Edward and his wife flown to Peru? The discovery that 'the tramp' was an investigative jouranlist was a development DCI Webb could have done without, since it threw the case wide open. But why was the body dressed so shabbily and what was the meaning of those sequins? Only after a long and tortuous trail does Webb discover the truth about The Nine Bright Shiners, and who had killed to possess them.