When a young girl is found murdered in a field, the scientific examination of the exhibits is just a routine job for the staff of Hoggatt's forensic science laboratory. But nothing could have prepared them for the brutal death of one of their own. When the senior biologist is found dead in his laboratory Commander Dalgliesh is called to the bleak fens of East Anglia, where the murderer is lying in wait to strike again.

'P. D. James is one the national treasures of British fiction . . . Each new book gives pleasure not just for macabre crimes or ingenious solutions but its density of experience.' Malcolm Bradbury, Mail on Sunday