For seventeen years, the Cambridgeshire hamlet of Jude's Ferry has lainabandoned, requisitioned by the Government for military training. In itsthousand-year-old history, it had been famous for one thing, never havingrecorded a single crime. But when local reporter Philip Dryden joins theTerritorial Army on exercise in the empty village, its spotless history is literallyblown apart. For the Territorial Army's shells reveal a hidden cellar beneath theold pub. And inside the cellar hangs a skeleton, a noose around its neck . . .