Something about the case disturbs seasoned DCI Gil Mayo from the start. If freelance journalist Rupert Fleming's death was a suicide, why were his briefcase and portable typewriter missing from the Porsche where the body was found? Then there is the post-mortem examination with its startling revelation that Fleming had been drugged. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, this was no suicide.
Delving deeper into Fleming's life, Mayo grows increasingly puzzled. The dead man lived several separate lives: he had one wife in town and another in the country, and still found time to frequent the town's amateur theatre—a hotbed of jealousies and intrigues where nothing is quite what it seems.
Methodically unravelling the tangled threads of Fleming's flamboyant and deceitful life, Mayo discovers that the lives of some people closely connected with him were touched by the murdered man. What does the sister of the woman he loves know about Fleming? Mayo asks himself. And what about the policewoman involved with the theatrical troupe?
