As private investigator William Monk listens to young Lucius Stourbridge plead for help in tracking down his runaway fiancee, he feels a sense of heavy foreboding. Miriam Gardiner disappeared suddenly from a croquet party at the luxurious mansion of her in-laws-to-be, and has not been seen since. Monk finds the coach in which Miriam had fled and, nearby, the murdered body of the coachman. Â There is no trace of Miriam.
What could have driven the beautiful widow to abandon the prospect of a loving marriage and financial abundance? Monk's attempt to answer that question proves a challenge, as Miriam Gardiner's fateful flight ends in a London courtroom where barrister Oliver Rathbone wages an uphill battle to absolve her from a charge of murder. And in a race with the hangman, Monk and clever nurse Hester Latterly -- themselves now newlyweds -- desperately pursue the elusive truth... and an unknown killer whose malign brilliance they have scarcely begun to fathom.
Read by Simon Jones, 3 cassettes / approx. 5 hours