"White heather's meant to be for good luck. Just goes to show..." Having been transferred to Yarmouth after the break-up of his marriage, Detective Inspector lan Preston is wondering if the secluded country life he's chosen might be a little too quiet. But his mind is swiftly changed for him with the discovery of Adele Morrison's drowned body in the Crown House hotel. A frantic search for Adele's next of kin leads to an abundance of connections. There's her estranged husband, a Cambridge professor, who stands to inherit everything he had been fighting to claim as part of a divorce settlement. And Sylvie, Adele's beautiful half-sister, flies all the way from Canada with the intention of proving that her death was suicide. Preston, however, is unable to get past the coroner's verdict of accidental death - that is, until another body is found floating in the Thames.