The Fordhamton Arts Festival gets off to a bad start when Lynne Anderson is murdered during Geno Washington High's production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound. She is found to have been poisoned during the dress rehearsal.

The murder brings Detective Inspector Miles Davis back to town. His new role in Intelligence leads him straight to the American listening post at Oates Hall where Lynne Anderson was stationed. The unofficial investigations by Lynne Anderson lead him to believe that there is subversive activity happening at the school.

Suspicion for the murder immediately falls on the organiser Jeremy Hawkins owing to his past as a student activist and known to have been seeing Lynne in the previous week.

Lynen was asked to help out as the original cast member had an acccident. Rehearsals continue until there is another serious incident involving the school's IT teacher and an electric wheelchair. As a last resort Inspector Davis sees that a deeper involvement in the play may help him solve the murder and the secret messages being passed aong the dark net.. He plays the part of the Real Inspector Hound and finds love in the most unusual circumstances whilst finding time to unmask a less than secret political movement.