Julia Bird has long wanted a look inside Berrywick's imposing Greystone Manor, and clearing out the gatehouse after the sudden death of Colonel Loxton's sister finally gives her the chance.
Hours after the Colonel greets her, she finds him dead behind a sofa with a bruise on his forehead, and forensics later confirm that his death was murder.
That same day she sees an unfamiliar man getting into a car outside the manor, yet the butler Garforth and the housekeeper Biddy insist there were no visitors, even as the Colonel's family clashes over the inheritance.
Days afterward, Julia discovers a second body among the rhododendrons and begins to suspect that both deaths turn on a long-buried secret she hears his friends discussing at the funeral.
Before the manor sees another killing, she must work out who the stranger was and whether that secret was reason enough for murder.
