The nude body swung - right - left - as its weight played on the rope which the hook held.

Dr. Julian Field had a straightforward day ahead of him - a short train journey to visit his patient, the wife of Philip Stanhope of Stoke Pelly, and then a journey home. So what caused him to leave the station at an earlier station, Fullaford? Whatever it was apparently led him to St. Mark's Church. And whatever it was led to him being found hanging from the light fixture in the church porch . . .

Why were half of his clothes found in the font of the church, and the other half in the font of a different church? Why was his wife summoned in the dead of night to nearby Friar's Woodburn on a fool's errand? And why has a sample of Mrs Stanhope's sputum disappeared? As Anthony Bathurst and Andrew MacMorran investigate, they discover many secrets hiding behind the façade of village life - but which of them was strong enough to lead to murder?

The Swinging Death was first published in 1948.