With his partner away on a honeymoon, Yorkshire detective Andrew Dalziel tries to beat the blues by taking a vacation of his own. But after getting caught in a torrential rain and running into a funeral procession, he winds up accompanying a crowd of upper-class mourners to a crumbling country house.

Dalziel isn't known for his elegant manners, but he has bigger problems than not fitting in: The owner of the home has died under unusual circumstances, and soon more bodies are turning up. And while Dalziel finds himself undeniably attracted to the widow, he knows that she, and everyone in the family, is a suspect.

"Hill's high standards of humor and civilized characterization are intact here, and justice and ambiguity are served in satisfactory fashion." --Publishers Weekly

Praise for Reginald Hill
"Hill's polished, sophisticated novels are intelligently written and permeated with his sly and delightful sense of humor . . . Enjoyable as much for their characters as for their complicated, suspenseful mystery plots." --The Christian Science Monitor