Jilted thriller writer Lady Violet Thorn has withdrawn to the Suffolk market town of Montford
with two servants and her leading character the adventuress Ruby Gibson for company. Violets
peace is disturbed when a stranger asks her for help claiming that a friend is being kept
prisoner in her own home. Her visitor seems so afraid that Violet despite her scepticism is
persuaded to investigate. A woman is killed outside Violets house then another murdered in the
town and as the deaths mount up she becomes convinced that they all lead to one place: the
increasingly forbidding Haglin House and whoever lives there
