‘A bookshop is a first-rate place for unobtrusive observation,’ he continued. ‘One can remain in it an indefinite time, dipping into one book after another, all over the place.’

Mr Richard Dodsley, owner of a fine second-hand bookshop on Charing Cross Road, has been found murdered in the cold hours of the morning. Shot in his own office, few clues remain besides three cigarette ends, two spent matches and a few books on the shelves which have been rearranged.

In an investigation spanning the second-hand bookshops of London and the Houses of Parliament (since an MP's daughter's new crime novel Death at the Desk appears to have some bearing on the case), Ferguson’s series sleuth Francis MacNab is at hand to assist Scotland Yard in an atmospheric and ingenious fair-play bibliomystery.