Their throats slit, the two men have turned the old vestry of St. Matthew's church red with blood. In death united, in life no men could have been more disparate: one a Baronet and Minister of the Crown; the other and alcoholic derelict. Commander Adam Dalgliesh believes that a single thread connects the two lives, one that will lead him to the killer. Instead, he soon finds himself following a tangled skein of lofty emotions and base ambitions into Britain's enigmatic upper class ... and into a labyrinth of ever widening scandal and murder without end...