Sir Alan Hume-Frazer lay dead thirty feet from the door of his own country manor, murdered on the night of his New Year's Ball with a curious little knife from his own collection.

Accused of the murder, his cousin, David Hume-Frazer, stood trial and was acquitted by the jury on the strength of doubt about the circumstantial evidence against him. But doubt now casts a shadow over David's good name, his reputation stained by doubt about his innocence and doubt about what really happened that night. Desperate to clear his name and find the truth about the murder, David turns to Reginald Brett, the barrister detective, to look into the case.

With his own doubts about the case - what motive could David have had for killing Alan? - Brett takes up the cold trail and follows the clues where they lead, discovering family secrets, exposing hidden identities and racing against time - and a shadowy assassin - to unravel the mystery before another Hume-Frazer is murdered.

Louis Tracy (1863-1928) was a prolific British writer of both fiction and nonfiction. Despite his large body of work, comparatively little is known about Tracy's life. The author of numerous mysteries, Tracy's works are characterized by a straightforward narrative style, well-developed background stories, interesting characters and complex plots.

Around 1884 Tracy sent a letter to a local paper opposing a railroad planned for a "beautiful Yorkshire valley." Offered a job as a reporter, Tracy became a newspaperman, first at Darlington, and later as editor of the English-language Morning Post in Allahabad, India.

Returning to England in 1892, Tracy helped found The Sun, then, with a partner, purchased The Evening News and Post. Tracy became editor of the renamed Evening News but shortly thereafter sold his shares, missing out on a huge fortune when the value of the paper subsequently skyrocketed. But the money from this sale allowed Tracy to carry out what he considered his finest accomplishment. During the brutal winter of 1894, with England in the grip of a depression, Tracy personally set-up, ran and funded a network of 23 soup kitchens, which fed an estimated three and a half million of London's starving poor.

Between 1885 and 1895 Tracy wrote and edited a series of nonfiction books and short stories based largely on his experiences in India. In 1895 his first novel, about a European conflict in which America comes to the aid of Britain in a great war which would be the end of all war, was published as a serial in "Pearson's Weekly" and later in book form. The Final War was quite successful and is a pioneering example of the "Future War" or "Future History" sub-genre of science fiction and fantasy literature.

By 1900 Tracy was producing mystery novels on a regular basis, and with the exception of 1917-1919, when he was rousing support for the war effort in America, he continued to publish an average two or three novels per year through the 1920's, and a collection of his works was reissued after his death. A few of his novels are still fairly well-known, and many of his mysteries, especially those featuring Reginald Brett and Winter & Furneaux, are still read and enjoyed by mystery fans today.