The Kingsmarkham rock festival is going smoothly until the disfigured body of of a local girl, thought to be living in London, is found in a nearby quarry. Wexford investigates the links between a charismatic singer and a young woman gone to the bad.

Wexford joins forces with the bridegroom when his best man is killed at the stag party. And Charlie Hatton's death is only the first in a string of murders which seem to be about cheating husbands, loose women and gangsters.

Rodney Williams disappears and then his body found in the woods. Wexford investigates and finds more than one mystery.

When a world-famous flautist is murdered Wexford wonders if his recently returned daughter had anything to do with it. He becomes obsessed with proving that she is an imposter, even getting permission to travel as far afield as the USA and France to do so.