Robin Nicholl had a few weeks before starting his new job, and so he had planned a brief vacation of long walks and wonderful solitude on the wildly bleak and romantic Hebridean island of Mull. But he hadn't reckoned on meeting the Wandering Widows--women bedecked with diamonds and pearls, curiously melancholy for ladies on holiday.

They were a strange lot, these four women--and their diverse problems quickly grew until Robin, with the other hotel guests, was caught up in a fearful and macabre spell...a spell suddenly broken by murder.