When your body of a French woman washes up on a wild inlet off the Cornish coast, Brian Macalvie, the divisional commander with the Devon-Cornwall police, is named in. Who could have killed this gorgeous visitor when the just visible footprints nearby belong to both little girls who found her? While Macalvie stands stumped in the Scilly Islands, inspector Richard Jury-twenty kilometers away on Land’s End?is at the Old Achievement pub, sharing a drink with the legendary past CID detective Tom about The Aged Success Brownell, a man renowned for resolving every case he undertook?well, nearly every case. Bronwell discloses that there is one he once skipped. In the days following the secret slaying of the Parisian visitor, two additional murders are known as in to Macalvie and Jury’s teams: first, a man is found dead in his Devon property, then a holy duster arises murdered at the Exeter Cathedral in Northamptonshire. When Macalvie and Jury opt to consult Bronwell, the retired detective tells them that the three murders, although very different in execution, are connected. As the trio sets out to resolve this puzzle, Jury and Macalvie wish that this doesn’t grow to be Brownell’s second ever miss.