The murder of young York Cragg, stabbed like a pin-cushion until the stuffing comes out, is the first of two violent killings.

His twenty-four-year-old wife Easter, every inch a lady, refuses to move out of the house where he is found quite dead, and riddled with knife wounds. Meanwhile, her father-in-law, Jason Cragg, and an enigmatic new friend, Nathaniel Sapperton, try to unmask the killer. Clue number one is a photograph of an actress found in Cragg's dresser drawer ...