1942. When Frederick Rowlands arrives in the city in answer to an urgent summons, he finds that the effects of war have not bypassed Oxford, which feels more like a military camp than a university town. His old friend and fellow war veteran, Major Ian Fraser, has been told that there is a spy at large in the university and at nearby Blenheim Palace, the heart of British Intelligence. Rowlands swiftly becomes embroiled in matters involving MI5 and enemy agents, but not before a vicious killer strikes. Now the race is on to find the murderer before he - or she - can kill again, and to prevent vital plans for a covert British mission being compromised. For Rowlands, the stakes could not be higher, as a deadly game of cat and mouse plays out .