Book thirteen in the Inspector Lestrade sereies.

'I cannot sing the old songs

I sang long years ago,

For heart and voice would fail me

And foolish tears would flow.'

Claribel

Recovering from a broken leg after his ignominious fall from the Titanic, Superintendent Lestrade goes to convalesce at the home of his betrothed, Fanny Berkley and her father Tom, the Chief Commissioner of Surrey.

It should have been a relatively peaceful time, apart from Lestrade's lack of dexterity in steering his Bath chair, but an attempt on the life of his father-in-law (that kills the butler instead) makes him realise that a policeman is never really off duty. What is even more puzzling is the arrival of a letter which simply reads 'Four for the Gospel Makers' – and it isn't the first Lestrade's been sent.

So begins one of Sholto Lestrade's most mystifying cases; a case that encompasses not only the present, but the past. Lestrade walks down Memory Lane to the time when he was a young and very naïve constable. He looks back on episodes in his career that never came to a satisfactory conclusion and that hold other clues as to who the sender of the letters is – because whoever it is, it is a cold blooded killer.