Rowan Morley, big and beautiful, made quite a splash when she went overboard from a pleasure launch into the Thames. Fortunately help was at hand, but Rowan's rescuers were bewildered when she insisted on denying the existence of what seemed to them a clearly murderous attack. Even when she was whisked away to an Oxfordshire village to act as housekeeper to two hapless males, Rowan remained a focus of mystery. Meanwhile Aran Hunter, art restorer, chafed at his inability to protect her; Frederick Flowers retired civil servant, feared for her; Wayne Denny, general factotum of a fleet of Thames houseboats, lusted after her; and Inspector Laurence Erskine of Special Branch, now working with Interpol, found himself involved willy-nilly when he learned that Rowan's previous employers were connected with a case he had been working on for months. None of them, except perhaps Erskine, could believe this glorious girl was involved in international crime, but when murder struck close to home it became a matter of life and death to discover what Rowan Morley, wittingly or unwittingly, knew or possessed.