The Hopwicke Country House Hotel is to host an event for the all-male society, The Pillars of Sussex. Jude helps out on the night, and in the early hours of the morning she watches with relief as the rowdy guests drag themselves to their beds. The next morning, one young solicitor is absent from breakfast. But when Jude heads for Nigel Ackford's room, presuming he is feeling the effects of the night before, she is horrified to find him hanging from the beams of his four-poster bed . . . Was it suicide? Jude has her doubts. Enlisting the support of her neighbour, Carole, she makes some tentative enquiries. It soon transpires that The Pillars of Sussex are involved in a conspiracy of misinformation