In this thriller set in London after the first world war, a young woman falls in love with a handsome detective sergeant who is staying at her home in the country. He is searching for a murderer; one of the potential suspects being the girl's father. This is not a detective novel-a jigsaw puzzle of imaginary crime and arbitrary clues, but a story about detectives. Crime and detection form the background but it is the love, the hate and fear of hunters and hunted, that form the motive of the plot.