On his train journey back to Scotland for a well-earned rest, Inspector Grant learns that a fellow passenger, one Charles Martin, has been found dead. It looks like a case of misadventure — but Grant is not so sure. Teased by some enigmatic lines of verse that the deceased had apparently scrawled on a newspaper, he follows a trail to the Outer Hebrides. And though it is the end of his holiday, it is also the beginning of an intriguing investigation into the bizarre circumstances shrouding Charles Martin's death…

It was rumoured that Hollywood stars would go down on their knees for the privilege of being photographed by the good-looking, brilliantly talented and ultra-fashionable portrait photographer Leslie Searle. But what was such a gifted creature doing in such an English village backwater of Salcott St Mary? And why — and how — did he disappear? If a crime had been committed, was it murder… fraud… or simply some macabre practical joke?