When Jude pays a visit to Long Bamber Stables - to meet an unusual new client and his owner, Sonia Dalrymple - she does not expect to stumble across a man laying in the darkness. Co-owner of the stables, Walter Fleet, has been viciously stabbed to death and Jude suspects she may have arrived only seconds after his murder. Unable to resist a mystery, friends Jude and Carole begin to make discreet enquiries. It soon becomes clear that Long Bamber Stables is a hotbed of dangerous passions, murderous rivalries and sinister secrets-and this horsing community will do anything to conceal the truth behind their deceptive lives.