"When headstrong and beautiful housemaid Sally Jupp is found strangled in her bed behind a bolted door, Detective Chief-Inspector Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must unmask her killer from a houseful of suspects--most of whom had very good reason to wish her ill. Each new clue he uncovers leads to a dramatic twist in this ingeniously plotted mystery"--Cover, p. 4.

In London, the managing director of a stately publishing house is found dead, a stuffed snake in his mouth. The suspects are many: a rejected author, a discarded mistress, a resentful employee, to mention just a few. Commander Adam Dalgliesh sifts through their lives and the company's finances in order to find the killer.

A subtle and powerful work of contemporary fiction. Combe Island off the Cornish coast has a bloodstained history of piracy and cruelty but now, privately owned, it offers respite to over-stressed men and women in positions of high authority who require privacy and guaranteed security. But the peace of Combe is violated when one of the distinguished visitors is bizarrely murdered. Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team are called on to solve a sensitive...