When old Monty Bickerstaffe finds a dead body in his drawing room it comes as a nasty surprise. Monty lives alone in a crumbling Cotswold manor house and the last thing he wants is the police sniffing around his property. The identity of the corpse and how and why it was left in Monty's home remain a mystery. The locals swear they've seen nothing unusual and Monty's relatives claim they've never set eyes on the stiff before. But Inspector Jess Campbell is convinced that someone's lying and, with the help of Superintendent Ian Carter, she must dig deep into Monty's family history to reveal the shocking truth...