In the cathedral town of Selchester, where everything happens according to schedule, no one can even remember when anything occurred as shocking as a murder. However, one ordinary November morning, the regular pattern of life in a peaceful English village is suddenly disturbed by an unusual and inexplicable murder.

The body of Mr. Postlethwaite, is found, bashed over the head with a hammer, inside the private room behind his office where the last legal work Mr. Postlethwaite did the day before, it seems, was to visit Sir James Cardyne, a local landowner, at his nearby country house in order to draw up a new will for him.

Incidental to this major catastrophe are the mysterious disappearances of large sums of money and the discovery of an eleventh-hour will which is to change the direction of many lives.

This is a complex, carefully plotted, and well-written mystery with unusual depth in its storytelling.