Dirk and Martha Lawrence are apparently not the happiest couple in New York, despite her millions of dollars and his fairly successful mystery-writing career.

Dirk apologizes the next day, telling the story of how his father had killed his mother's lover, thereby causing his over-reaction.

The meetings are arranged with innocuous envelopes that look like advertising, but with Martha's name and address written in scarlet typewriter ink.

After numerous popular mystery novels, a radio program and a number of movies, the character of Ellery Queen was at this point firmly established.

This novel is more frank about sexual matters than earlier Queen works (for instance, in 1942's Calamity Town, the possibility of extramarital sex is referred to entirely in euphemisms).