Bridge professional Cassie Swann decides to investigate the twenty-year-old murder of her father, 'Handsome' Harry Swann. At the same time, Cassie finds herself embroiled in a case of racially motivated poison-pen letters which someone in the Cotswold village of Larton Easewood is sending to an Indian consultant, Dr Sammi Ray, and his wife. Further complications ensue when Dr Ray is found garotted outside the block of Kensington flats where his mistress resides. Menaced by phone-calls from a psychopath, experiencing problems in her love life, fighting the battle of the bulge and frightened by a midnight prowler, Cassie nonetheless wins through - to discover not only who killed her father, but who is behind the tragedy of Dr Ray.