It was just as it had been in his teens. In the early years of adolescence, he had put down all his feelings of dissatisfaction to the fact that he hadn’t got that all-important amulet, a girl-friend. But, to his surprise, at the age of nineteen, after a steady two-year relationship, he had found he was still attributing his discontent to the same cause. Like the horizon, a sense of fulfilment kept its distance, regardless of his position.

In this Charles Paris mystery, the seasoned actor and part-time sleuth gets the part of understudy to the lead in a West End play. But when the lead gets shot on stage on the opening night, it falls to Charles once again to solve the murder.