Publisher's Synopsis
The stolen paintings are of little value - but they cost the life of a man... An unpretentious country art exhibit turns into a frightening episode of theft, murder and blackmail, in this classic puzzler set in an affluent English farming village. What is the secret Katharine Ridley is keeping from her granddaughter, and what does it have to do with the death of popular Francis Peck, the Heritage Trust caretaker at Fairlynch, former manor of the Ridleys? The Yard's Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Pollard and Inspector Toye are hard put to unravel the tangled doings among the gentry of bucolic Wellchester.