Forty-four-year-old Willow King - dedicated British civil servant, glamorous romance writer, amateur sleuth, and wife to a Scotland Yard detective - is about to experience motherhood for the first time. Middle-age maternity and all its complications - Willow's frightening hemorrhage after her daughter's birth, her worry about losing her identity and independence to "nappies, feeds, and mush" - would be more than enough for most women. But when Willow's obstetrician, Dr. Ringstead, turns up dead, killed just as Willow's baby was born, she feels compelled to investigate, even from her hospital bed. From a penny-pinching hospital manager, who'd been the butt of one of Ringstead's jokes; to a disgruntled registrar, convinced that Ringstead had blocked his promotion; to a cuckolded husband, suspects abound. But the deeper Willow digs, the more nervous the killer becomes, and soon it looks as if Willow and her baby may become the next victims.