When the body of Laura Jarman is discovered crammed inside a steamer trunk and dumped on a Brighton railway station platform, her wealthy industrialist family is shouting for answers, but their reluctance to co-operate with the investigation arouses suspicion. Shortly after, a second body - Laura's flatmate Kitty -- is discovered in similar circumstances.

What links Laura and Kitty to the private gentlemen's parties held in a country house on the edge of sleepy Wyncombe village, and what is Laura's family so desperate to conceal? Bunch Courtney and DCI William Wright find themselves racing along a convoluted trail through munitions factories and London clubs to a final shocking end.