1921, Falmouth. Inspector George Bartlett is investigating the disappearance of a young girl, and events take a turn for the worse when a woman is found dead, badly mutilated, on a local beach. Bartlett and his assistant, Constable Archibald Boase, soon realise the woman was a local prostitute, Ivy Williams.

The murder investigation leads the men to the wealthy inhabitants of Penvale Manor House A web of illegitimacy, inheritances, and secrecy is uncovered, and soon the hangman's noose is swinging precariously over one of the suspects – but have they got the right person?

The first instalment in the Bartlett and Boase Mysteries, a detective series set on the beautiful English Riviera during the 1920s. For fans of Agatha Christie and Golden Age crime fiction.