No breath of scandal has ever touched the aristocratic Moidore
family-until Sir Basil's beautiful widowed daughter is stabbed to death
in her own bed, a shocking, incomprehensible tragedy.
Inspector William Monk is ordered to investigate in a manner that will
give the least possible pain to the influential family. But Monk,
brilliant and ambitious, is handicapped by lingering traces of amnesia
and by the craven ineptitude of his supervisor, who would like nothing
better than to see Monk fail. With the help of nurse Hester Latterly, a
progressive young woman who served with Florence Nightingale in the
Crimea, Monk gropes warily through the silence and shadows that obscure
the case, knowing that with each step he comes closer to the appalling
truth.