It was his third visit to the gloomy house on Orchard Drive. Each time, he parked in the same place. Each time, he carried a briefcase. And each time, Louise North greeted him at the door.

Susan Townsend was the only resident with no interest in the affair going on next door, or in the neighbourhood gossip about it. Yet it was Susan who found the murdered bodies of the lovers, locked not in passion, but in death. And it was Susan whose own life would be imperilled by a monstrous crime far beyond the imaginings of the vilest gossiping tongues.

A classic Rendellian murder mystery.