The setting is a village in the Highlands. The period is that following the Dunkirk evacuation. And the characters include a General of the old aristocracy, his lovely Spanish wife, the Scottish villagers whose half-Spanish nephew, recuperating from Dunkirk, falls in love with the General's wife, and other inhabitants of the Valley. The General is killed; the lovers suspect each other; the whole village is implicated. In the unravelling of the mystery, the romance takes second place. . .—Kirkus