I sat down on one of the couches. "So, Stepfather," I said. "Who did you kill?"
"He didn't kill anyone!" Mother snapped. "Don't be silly!"
I sighed. "Okay. So who didn't you kill?"
Marcus Corvinus doesn't seriously think that his stepfather is a murderer: Priscus wouldn't hurt a fly. But he did discover the corpse, and was caught clutching the murder weapon, so proving the old man's innocence presents quite a challenge. Not at all Marcus's idea of a holiday . . .
The victim had enemies enough, a cuckolded husband among them. As usual, Marcus needs the brains of his lovely wife Perilla to untangle the more complex threads of the investigation; but even so, he catches many a red herring before hooking the murderer.