Well-known actress Caroline Fawley has given up her successful stage and television career for love and life at Alderley, an elegant country home "bought" for her by her married "friend," international business titan Marius Fleetwood. Despite the inquisitive villagers, Caroline is happy and the world is good...until a mysterious young man backpacking through the countryside arrives at the door. He says his name is Peter Bagshaw, but Caroline can't help noticing his physical resemblance to Marius. Is he Marius' son? What else has Marius hidden from Caroline? Who is Marius anywayIs everything about him a lie? Then a murder occurs.... As always in a Barnard mystery, the fun is in the details, the characters, the twists. With big houses, wealth, opera, and obsessive devotion among the ingredients, Barnard has cooked up another witty, richly nuanced novel worthy of the crime-writing star that he is.