[1] It is the sixteenth in his series of novels featuring the Golden Age Detective Sir Clinton Driffield, the Chief Constable of a rural English county.

[2] Writing in The New York Times Isaac Anderson felt that "to appreciate this story fully one should either be well grounded in science or take Sir Clinton’s explanations on trust".

Recent archaeological research has unearthed an ancient hoard on a patch of land earmarked for potential development for the expanding town.

It is only when Sir Clinton realises that the air strike has unearthed the potentially lucrative presence of vast deposits of tin (now in short supply due to the loss of Malaya to Japanese forces) that the reason for the killings makes sense.

Matters are complicated by one of the beneficiaries, a Liberian confidence trickster who claims to have occult powers that Sir Clinton is ultimately able to debunk.