When Mary Dinwoodie is found choked in a ditch following a night out with her boyfriend, a mysterious caller phones the local paper with a quotation from Hamlet. The career of the Yorkshire Choker is under way...If Detective Superintendent Dalziel is unimpressed by the literary phone calls, he's downright angry when Sergeant Wield calls in a clairvoyant. Linguists, psychiatrists, mediums—it's all a load of nonsense as far as he's concerned. But meanwhile the Choker strikes again—and again...