''I''m twenty-eight. I''m a freelance TV researcher. And last November I investigated my first murder . . .''

Alex Tanner is always on the lookout for work - mortgages on flats in Notting Hill do not come cheap, after all. So when TV producer Barty O''Neill mentions a particularly juicy assignment she jumps at the chance.

Barty has been asked to investigate the shooting of Lord Sherwin, a famous society murder of the 1950s. Although suspicion quickly fell on Sherwin''s beautiful wife Laura the case has stubbornly remained unsolved. However Barty has a contact - Miss Potter, once governess to the Sherwin children - who is now ready to tell her story . . .

And Alex is poised to uncover the truth behind a terrible secret kept hidden for over thirty years . . .