Returning to Oxford for a reunion dinner at her old college, Harriet Vane is delighted to be back in familiar, beloved surroundings. The idyllic return is shattered by a series of nasty messages referring to her earlier trial for murder.

After she is cleared for the murder of her husband, Harriet Vane seeks solace in the country, but is soon attempting to solve another murder with her good friend Lord Peter Wimsey when a body washes up on shore and then mysteriously disappears.

"A corpse has been found in the bath of an architect's flat, wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez. A financier has seemingly vanished into thin air from his bedroom. The ever-curious Lord Peter Wimsey is intrigued by these odd events. Ignoring the clumsy efforts of the official investigator looking into the death, the aristocratic amateur sleuth, accompanied by his valet, Bunter, a skilled photographer, begins his own inquiry. The gentleman detective...

When Sandy Campbell's body is found at the foot of a cliff near the small town of Kirkcudbright, the local constabularies are convinced that the argumentative painter is a victim of a tragic accident. But when Lord Peter Wimsey turns up, the hunt begins for an ingenious killer. Faced with six men, all of whom have a motive for murder, the aristocratic amateur sleuth must deduce which are the five red herrings and which has blood on his hands.