A brutal murder with a golf club and an ingenious plot bursting with snobbery, suspicion, adultery, and secrets...

The quiet village of Swevenings seemed an English pastoral paradise, until the savagely beaten body of a lord was found near a tranquil stream. Suddenly, the playground of British blue bloods has been soiled by murder and the lowest sort of intrigue. But if anyone can clean it up, it's the famous Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. Roderick Alleyn's investigation takes him through petty vendettas, an ex-commander's blend of whiskey and archery, and cocktails on the lawn with a femme fatale. But the motive he's angling for lies even deeper than the trout stream beneath the rustic bridge.

The lives of the inhabitants of Swevenings are disrupted only by a fierce competition to catch the Old Un, a monster trout known to dwell in the stream-a fish that may very well be the key to the whole mystery.