Commander Dalgliesh is recuperating from a life-threatening illness when he receives a call for advice from an elderly friend who works as a chaplain in a home for the disabled on the Dorset coast. Dalgliesh arrives to discover that Father Baddeley has recently and mysteriously died, as has one of the patients at Toynton Grange. Evidently the home is not quite the caring community it purports to be. Dalgliesh is determined to discover the truth of his friend's death, but further fatalities follow and his own life is in danger as he unmasks the evil at the heart of Toynton Grange.

P. D. James, OBE, has won many awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award and the National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature (USA). She received the Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association, and was created a Life Peer. In 1997 she was elected President of the Society of Authors.

Michael Jayston is a highly-regarded actor, having appeared in numerous films, among them Cromwell, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Zulu Dawn and Nicholas and Alexandra. His many TV credits include The Royal, Doctors, Emmerdale, Murder in Suburbia and Only Fools and Horses, while on stage he has been seen in Henry V and Hamlet for the RSC, as well as Private Lives and The Rivals.