'Love and death, ' said Chief Inspector Wexford. 'Those were the only two sensational things that ever happened to Margaret Parsons. The thing is they both happened in my district. ' The police knew about Margaret Parsons's life, and by the look of it, it was dull. But it was not Margaret's life that interested Wexford. It was her death. She had been a predictable ordinary woman - but now she had met a death of passion and violence for which there seemed neither motive nor clue.