Why would anyone want to murder Susan Linton? The British stage actress was just beginning to make her name in Hollywood when her career was cut cruelly short by a riding accident, leaving her confined to a wheelchair. Yet on the day before Easter she is found dead by her housekeeper with multiple stab wounds. Was this the random act of a drug crazed intruder, or was she murdered by someone she knew? Her former husband perhaps, recently released from prison for underage internet grooming. Or Paul, a devoted fan, but a loner with a long history of mental illness. As Detective Inspector Steve Straker sets out to find the murderer, he faces a crisis in his own life. He and Emily are not getting on and he suspects she may be having an affair. In the coming days, with pressure mounting both at work and at home, Straker finds that he has to revise several assumptions - about colleagues, about witnesses and most of all, about himself.