DCI Alan Clarke returns in the third book of this crime series. He has relocated to the Kent coast, together with his wife Zoe, and young son Adam, and is keen to make a new life there. Now working permanently at Canterbury Police Station, and having successfully solved the murder on Herne Bay beach some six months earlier, he is assigned to investigate the latest murder a few miles along the coast at Westgate Bay, an area which is considered the “ Mayfair “ of the Kent coast, where many wealthy people live.

A popular local doctor, Ian Jones has been sedated and then cold bloodedly poisoned, a crime which was clearly premeditated. His estranged wife Pamela is now living with their gardener, who has access to weedkiller. She is also a suspect, as his will favours her as well as their son. His brother David is a compulsive gambler, and heavily in debt. Ian's love child Holly turns up suddenly, and against all the odds, Pamela bonds with her new step daughter.

Ian's housekeeper Kate Bryant has served him faithfully for over ten years, but her sister Lisa still carries a torch for the doctor because of her unrequited love for him. She also seems to be hiding secrets, so quickly becomes a suspect.

Lisa had an unhappy love affair with Ryan Lee fifteen years previously, unbeknown to her he has moved to Margate with his girlfriend Tiffany Preston, and when Tiffany's employer Eva Scott is also murdered in a similar way, they also become suspects for the second murder.

Alan cannot find a motive or a connection between the two murders until a foreign body discovered inside the lining of the chair Eva Scott was found dead in , leads him straight to the culprit, but is he too late to prevent further deaths?