Andrew Basnett, retired botany professor, accompanies an old friend, whose sister has received a blackmail letter, to her home in a Berkshire village. The letter had obviously been put in the wrong envelope, but it seems to indicate that a murder has been committed in Lindleham, where, strangely, several people are missing. But as Andrew quietly investigates the neighbours, the realisation dawns that his friends, too, have something to hide.

Retired Andrew Basnett returns to Knotlington, where he once worked as an assistant lecturer, to an old friend who needs some advice. Two years earlier a member of the Fine Arts Department was murdered. Yet the killer had been caught and sentenced, so why should Andrew's friend need help?Many believed Stephen Sharland, who is serving a life sentence for the murder, was innocent. But before Andrew even begins making enquiries, there is another murder, and Andrew finds him in a complex web of emotion, struggling to sift truth from lies.

In this, his third adventure, Professor Andrew Basnett takes a brief break from his usual stomping grounds in the Little English Village, opting to spend Christmas in a Small Australian City instead. He’s visiting Tony, an old colleague with a newish wife, and he’s barely had a post-flight snack before he’s made aware of a cloud hanging over the marriage. Jan, Tony’s bride, is widely believed to have bashed her first husband over the head, and though she was acquitted of the murder, Tony himself is starting to have uncomfortable second thoughts. Things don’t get any more comfortable when, at a family dinner, one of the guests is done in, killed with a chunk of the same crystal that put paid to Jan’s first husband. And Jan herself? She’s disappeared. Only the Professor, it would seem, can banish the clouds of distrust and reveal the truth, clear as crystal.

Andrew Basnett, retired botany professor, accompanies an old friend, whose sister has received a blackmail letter, to her home in a Berkshire village. The letter had obviously been put in the wrong envelope, but it seems to indicate that a murder has been committed in Lindleham, where, strangely, several people are missing. But as Andrew quietly investigates the neighbours, the realisation dawns that his friends, too, have something to hide.

Retired Andrew Basnett returns to Knotlington, where he once worked as an assistant lecturer, to an old friend who needs some advice. Two years earlier a member of the Fine Arts Department was murdered. Yet the killer had been caught and sentenced, so why should Andrew's friend need help?Many believed Stephen Sharland, who is serving a life sentence for the murder, was innocent. But before Andrew even begins making enquiries, there is another murder, and Andrew finds him in a complex web of emotion, struggling to sift truth from lies.

In this, his third adventure, Professor Andrew Basnett takes a brief break from his usual stomping grounds in the Little English Village, opting to spend Christmas in a Small Australian City instead. He’s visiting Tony, an old colleague with a newish wife, and he’s barely had a post-flight snack before he’s made aware of a cloud hanging over the marriage. Jan, Tony’s bride, is widely believed to have bashed her first husband over the head, and though she was acquitted of the murder, Tony himself is starting to have uncomfortable second thoughts. Things don’t get any more comfortable when, at a family dinner, one of the guests is done in, killed with a chunk of the same crystal that put paid to Jan’s first husband. And Jan herself? She’s disappeared. Only the Professor, it would seem, can banish the clouds of distrust and reveal the truth, clear as crystal.