The prosperous housing estate of Smithy’s Loam should be the epitome of middle-class respectability, but Mrs Pargeter decides that there’s something just a little bit odd about her new neighbours. When the central heating breaks down, she decides to contact the former occupants, the Cottons, for advice. But the address to which they should have moved doesn’t exist and Mr Cotton’s employers seem to have no trace of him. Then Mrs Pargeter

While she has never felt the need to change her figure, Mrs Pargeter is happy enough to accompany her friend Kim to a health farm. Until, in the night, she sees a body being wheeled out. What Mrs Pargeter doesn’t realise is that this suspicious death will set her on a trail of detection which will bring her into direct conflict with her late husband’s business associates.