Superintendent Littlejohn is summoned to Surrey to investigate murder by explosion in Bellairs' novel of small-town grudges with calamitous consequences.

A novel of smalltown grudges and the disastrous events that ensue from them, with an abundance of possible solutions to the central mystery. A much-requested third book reissued from the oeuvre of the author of other "British Library Crime Classics" reissues "The Dead Shall Be Raised" and "Murder Of A Quack".