Happy that his crime-busting days are over, former inspector John Reynolds of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary is content to spend his time writing successful detective novels and tending his garden in the small Cornish village of St. Breddaford. He is thus quite surprised that his natural curiosity takes over when Police Constable Derrymore visits to tell him about a gruesome find: a headless corpse in a pigsty on Hanscastle Farm. Reynolds is soon involved whether he likes it or not. He is summoned by Lady Rowan of Rowan Court to discuss the scandalous destruction of the flower boxes she had painstakingly placed around the village green - an incident she is convinced is linked to the murder. Lady Rowan presents Reynolds with a list of would-be suspects - reclusive artist Frank Mathews, old widow Penlore, and even Peter Burns, the meek village schoolteacher - not to mention the New Age travelers who are camped on the outskirts of the village. But when another body turns up, Reynolds soon realizes that broken flower boxes are the least of his problems....