You thought the quest for eternal life was a new preoccupation, the preserve of tech bros with too much money? Not so. It's the 1980s, and rich old dilettante Winslow Maxwell Penndragon is shooting for a century or more...but somebody else is shooting, and they're aiming at Penndragon. With heirs aplenty, Winslow P. calls in Robert Forsythe, a London barrister with a nose for trouble and a reputation for discretion, to figure out who's got murder on the mind. Forsythe loves a good puzzle, but he does not love Winslow P.—and it would appear he's got company.

As assistant to Forsythe and witness to his exploits, "Sandy" Sanderson surely knows that when you bring a group of celebrity strangers to a snowbound, isolated hotel, it rarely ends well. But Christmas in the countryside sounded so appealing! So when one of the guests fails to turn up for breakfast, it's terrible, of course, but for Sandy it's also ever-so-slightly familiar. She knows her Agatha Christie. And this is not her first rodeo.