London, 1955. When crime writer Donald Langham's literary agent asks for his help in sorting out 'a delicate matter', little does Langham realize what he's getting himself into. For a nasty case of blackmail leads inexorably to murder as London's literary establishment is rocked by a series of increasingly bizarre deaths. With three members of the London Crime Writers' Association coming to sudden and violent ends, what at first appeared to be a series of suicides looks suspiciously like murder - and there seems to be something horribly familiar about the various methods of despatch.<br>With the help of his literary agent's assistant, the delectable Maria Dupre, Langham finds himself drawing on the skills of his fictional detective hero as he hunts a ruthless and fiendishly clever killer - a killer with old scores to settle.