1. It was the year of the Profumo Scandal, the Great Train Robbery, the Kennedy Assassination - and the Mickeldore Hall Murder.

The guests at the Hall that weekend had included a Tory minister, a CIA officer specialising in dirty tricks, a British diplomat with royal connections - and Cissy Kohler, a young American nanny who had come to England for love. And love kept her in England for nearly thirty years. In jail. For murder.

Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel is convinced that Cissy Kohler was - and is - guilty. But, investigating further, he soon finds his certainties being eroded. Not a state of affairs Dalziel can put up with for long, particularly when his old mentor’s reputation is at stake. Not to mention his own …