''What kind of person are you, Alex Tanner? How would you describe yourself?''
''Curious,'' I said. ''I''d call myself curious. I like to find things out.'' It''s often proved my downfall . . .

In her childhood Alex dreamt of being a private eye. Actually she''d wanted to be a male private eye in Los Angeles, working Philip Marlowe''s patch; instead she''s settled for being a freelance TV researcher and private investigator based in Notting Hill . . .

And her latest investigation takes her to an exclusive boys'' boarding school, Rissington Abbey. Her brief: to discover the state of mind of young Oliver de Sauvigny Desmoulins in the days before his drowning.

But Alex soon begins to hear chilling reports about Rissington Abbey. Unfortunately she ignores them - until the second death . . .