In this, the fourth installment of the Doyle & Acton mystery series, Detective Sergeant Doyle realizes that several apparently unrelated murders are actually "containment" murders--murders to contain an ominous scandal that could reach into the highest levels of Scotland Yard's CID. In the process of tracking down the killers, however, she comes to the unsettling conclusion that Chief Inspector Acton has committed a containment murder or two of his own.