Battle and burial are built into the history of Lansdown Hill, so it is no great shock when part of a skeleton is unearthed there. But Peter Diamond, Bath s Head of CID, can t ignore the fresh corpse found close to the folly known as Beckford s Tower. The hill becomes the setting for one of the most puzzling cases he has investigated, involving golf, horseracing, Civil War re-enactment and the Cyrillic alphabet.

Inevitably, Diamond butts heads with the group of vigilantes who call themselves the Lansdown Society, discovering in the process that his boss Georgina is a member. She resolves to sideline Diamond by sending him to Bristol and handing the skeleton investigation to his deputy, Keith Halliwell. Fortunately matters don t pan out as Georgina plans...