The discovery of Sir Robert Boniface's body on the floor of his blue limousine was made quite accidentally on a sultry Friday evening towards the end of June. The industrial and financial tycoon, and former stalwart of the British Cabinet, had been shot in the head and left in the quiet Vale of Health alongside London's Hampstead Heath. Nearby, a rejected portrait of Sir Robert is found riddled with bullets in the studio of the missing artist Matt Caldwell.

As the plot hurtles towards its feverish denouement under the bells of the capital's most famous clock, this closely observed and stylish study of both character and motive transports the reader from the Stock Exchange to Scotland Yard.