As the novel begins, Margaret Bowman of Charlbury Drive Chipping Norton is off to a funeral.

Her husband, left alone, finds an angry letter, apparently from a lover, in his wife's handbag.

After the murder, Inspector Morse, with the help of the receptionist Miss Sarah Jonstone, examines the letters and phone messages booking the various rooms at the hotel.

Thomas Bowman, the postman, turns out to be the corpse, and his wife and her lover are the instigators of the murder.

The corpse is found in a car in a multi storey rather than in a hotel annexe, and a number of complications are added to the plot, with Rosemary having two lovers, one of whom kills the other and her husband, and a subplot of Pierce being involved in art fraud.