Lionel Townsend is Sergeant Beef's priggish biographer, most often found exasperated by Beef's boorish manners. But now Townsend's aunt has been poisoned. Townsend must turn to Beef for assistance—he has surprisingly found himself the prime suspect of the murder. When an unpopular publisher is found hanged in the Cotswolds, it seems utterly unrelated. Beef, in his inimitable way, flatfoots his way to a stunning conclusion.