''Her scarf had been knotted tightly around her neck and it was obvious she had been killed with great determination ...''

Susan Andrews has been murdered and her body found near a disused airfield. The case is now in the hands of Detective-Superintendent Simon Manton, but Susan's father, a former detective-inspector, decides to investigate himself.

Important questions soon emerge - what part has a philandering salesman with a scratched cheek, or the dreamy undergraduate son of the local gentry played in Susan's final hours? And, how much evidence must you have against a suspect before you can charge them with murder?