The story opens with a dinner party hosted by Mrs. Eleanor Maxie at Martingale, a manor house in the (fictional) Essex village of Chadfleet.

Serving at table is Sally Jupp, chosen from a local refuge for unmarried mothers to help in the house by Mrs Maxie and now living in with her infant son, Jimmy.

Also present at the meal are Stephen's former romantic interest, Catherine Bowers; Alice Liddell, warden of St Mary's Refuge; and Dr Epps, the family doctor.

Stephen suspects that Mr. Maxie has managed to deceive his devoted servant Martha, pretending to take the tablets when he is simply concealing them for a suicide attempt.

The pace is deliberate, the characterization of the members of an English county family very well done, and the central character of Sally Jupp – a servant girl with imagination and a love of power – most unusual but compelling.

"[3] – A Catalogue of Crime In a 1966 book review, Anthony Boucher of The New York Times wrote "This is a literate and not unpromising first novel, but modeled firmly upon the detective story of 30 years ago at its dullest...

As the television adaptation was set contemporaneously but the characters' ages had to remain unchanged, Felix Hearne's military service was relocated to Cyprus and a secondary storyline was added about Cypriot drug-dealers.