He’s leaving to spend his vacation at his aunt Jane’s place, at Monksmere Head. He likes to visit his aunt. Her neighbours are a literary community: Maurice Seton is a writer of mystery novels, Celia Calthrop is a writer of romantic novels. There’s also her niece Elizabeth Marley, who repays her aunt’s generosity with contempt. Sylvia Kedge is the secretary, Oliver Latham is a critic, and Justin Bryce... I don’t know, he’s there too. Sylvia is described as a cripple, with her “twisted ugly legs braced into calipers”, but she’s also “a qualified shorthand typist”. Seton likes to make accurate researches and experiments for his books, and it is his habit to stay at the Cadaver Club while in London: the club is only for men, women are not allowed because they’re consider a distraction..
Celia suggested to Seton an interesting way to start a book: “I pictured a body drifting out to sea in a dinghy with its hands chopped off at the wrists” which is exactly the way Seton’s body is found.
Detective Inspector Reckless is in charge of the investigation, Dalgliesh finds himself in the middle of it because he’s at his aunt’s wife when they come with the news, and his aunt is among the suspects.
Seton’s brother Digby is his heir; he dreams of opening his own club.
After the PM report, Reckless tells Dalgliesh that it was a heart attack, Seton died of ‘natural causes’... but Dalgliesh is sure that it was provoked, that he was murdered.
There are a lot of interrogations, a lot of side stories: Seton’s troubled wife died of suicide after he wrote her a cruel letter; Oliver had an affair with her; Bryce accused Seton of murdering his pet cat; the hands where chopped off using a tool taken from Jane’s house.
Towards the end there is a very big storm, and Bryce calls Dalgliesh saying they should go over to Seton’s house where Sylvia is supposed to be alone because there’s going to be a dangerous flood and she couldn’t make it on her own with her legs. Once there, Dalgliesh finds the situation dangerous indeed, and he also finds Oliver unconscious. He tries to help them both up to the roof. When Sylvia turns against him, both men have to fight and they manage it, despite Dalgliesh’s hurt hands and Oliver’s blow to the head. Sylvia falls down to her death.
The little package that Dalgliesh took from her before she fell contains all the proof Reckless needs to close this case. Sylvia planned it all, and Digby was her accomplice. They know from a tape she had wanted to keep with her that she knew of his recurring nightmare, his terrible phobia, so they abducted him and sort of buried him alive, they locked him into a coffin, I think they sort of made one out of a sidecar, so that he actually died of a heart attack, but then “we had to take off his hands, those telltale hands with the knuckles torn to the bone where he had battered them against his coffin lid” ...
She also killed Bryce’s cat, and she sent that nasty letter to Seton’s wife - Seton did write it, but never intended to give it to her.
At the end, Dalgliesh doesn’t need to reach a decision about his future with Deborah anymore because she sends him a letter saying that she’s tired of waiting for him to make up his mind and she’s accepted a job offer in New York, so this means they broke up.
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