Since the Great War’ s end, Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge has suffered from shell shock, with only two constants to sustain him: his police work and his sister, Frances. Now Frances is married, and Rutledge cannot shake a deepening sense of loss.
Unable to sleep, Rutledge drives out of London into the countryside. He’ s jolted from his memories when his headlamps pick out a motorcar stopped in the road. Stand-ing next to the vehicle is a woman in evening dress, with blood on her hands and a dead man at her feet.
She swears she didn’ t kill Stephen Wentworth— that a stranger fired a single shot before vanishing into the night. Rutledge is asked to take on the case, but when he probes the victim’ s background, the Inspector discovers that Wentworth’ s life was shrouded in mystery. His estranged family call him a murderer. But who did Wentworth kill? When a second suspicious death occurs, the evidence
suggests a predator is on the loose. But where is he?
