Lynley returns to his ancestral home in Cornwall to celebrate his engagement to Helen. His difficult relationship with his dysfunctional family is soon overshadowed by a murder on part of his own estate - and the chief suspect is Peter, Lynley's drug-addict brother.

Havers is on holiday in Cornwall, learning Akido, and Lynley is also in the county to visit his mother, when a local horse trainer is found hanged in a stable on the estate next to Lynley's. The dead man's money troubles suggest suicide, but then Lynley finds he had links with smuggling. Another lead suggests that the killer may be uncomfortably close to home. As the case develops, Lynley has to think out where his future lies - with the police, or managing his own property?