For Dorothea Cassidy Thursdays are special, and a welcome respite from her duties as a vicar's wife. Then she is strangled - and Thursdays are never the same again.

As the small town of Otterbridge prepares for its summer carnival, Inspector Stephen Ramsay begins a painstaking investigation. He discovers that she had taken on a number of deserving cases, including a sick and lonely old woman, a disturbed adolescent, and a compulsive gambler. All these people are haunted, in one way or another, by Dorothea's goodness. And even her close family have secrets to hide. But which of them could have possibly wanted her dead?

It is not until a second body is discovered that Ramsay starts to understand how Dorothea lived - and why she died. With the carnival festivities in full swing and dusk falling, Ramsay's murder investigation reaches its chilling climax . . .