Thwarted ambition, unconsummated passion, weakness, hatred, jealousy -the human components of many crimes, including the brutal murder that is the subject of this uncommonly literate mystery. As the story opens, all is fellowship and conviviality in the Common Room of St. Thomas's College, Oxford. The dons are enjoying after-dinner port and cigars and the companionship of Ernst Brendel, a Viennese lawyer visiting the College. The civilized calm of academe is soon shattered, however, when a brilliant but unpopular tutor is found shot to death in Dean Hargreaves lodgings.

In the absence of clues and a clear motive, the crime is deemed to be a matter beyond the competence of the local constabulary, and the coolly methodical Inspector Cotter of Scotland Yard is called in. Even he, however, can make little headway in unraveling the sequence of events leading up to the crime, or in establishing the identity of the murderer.

It remains for the visiting Brendel, an amateur student of murder and detection, to shed some light on the case. Worldly, charming, and singularly perceptive, the scholarly sleuth uncovers a tragic tale of human weakness and obsession - with its inevitably tragic consequences.