Professor Andrew Basnett has returned to his old university for a meeting of the Botanical Association, an event that should be entirely benign, though he can't help being a little curious about Carl Judd, an artist who was murdered there two years ago. Also about Stephen Sharland, who's in prison for the murder—only no one thinks he did it, not even Judd's widow. Rumors are flying, tongues are wagging, and then the sole witness to that crime ends up murdered as well, in this fifth mishap for Basnett from Crime Writers' Association cofounder E.X. Ferrars.