"The brilliant duo of Arthur Bryant and John May uncover a nefarious plot behind the seemingly innocuous death of an old lady--and when the case leads them to the London Bridge, it all comes down on the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Ninety-one-year-old Alice Hoffman died alone in her top-floor flat. Social services say she slipped through the cracks in a failing system. But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their suspicions....

American heiress Linnet Holland, angry with Jack, the impoverished Earl of Featherstone, for interfering in her plans to marry a man he knew to be a fortune-hunter, refuses his proposal of marriage and he sets out to win her over.