Chapters 1-2 Summary

The book begins, as all good mysteries do, with a murder. Colonel Charles Harris is out riding over his land one morning when he's hit in the face by a shotgun blast. He dies hard, the narrator tells the reader, with a cry of angry rage.

Meanwhile, in London at Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the British police, a man named Bowles looks over a letter written in a girlish, childish hand and contemplates the downfall of a rival detective, Inspector Ian Rutledge. Colonel Harris's case comes across Bowles desk and he maliciously sends it to Ian Rutledge, knowing the case's controversial issues might reflect badly on Rutledge.

With the preliminaries in place, the author introduces the main character, Inspector Ian Rutledge. He is a formerly brilliant police investigator for Scotland Yard who has returned damaged in body and spirit from...