“One of the subtlest and wittiest practitioners of the simon-pure British detective story” New York Times

It is holiday time in Douglas, and the town is alive with the local carnival. As the carnival sweeps down the promenade an elderly man, who is peacefully gazing out to sea quietly dies. He is found with a knife-thrust his back. He is, at first, merely an anonymous victim, known casually by a few locals as Uncle Fred.

Superintendent Littlejohn, calling to visit his old friend, the Rev Caesar Kinrade, Archdeacon of Man, on his way home from a police conference in Dublin, is asked by his comrade, Inspector Knell, of the Manx C I D, to give him a hand in the case, unofficially. Inspector Littlejohn’s questioning soon reveals the many layers of the strange life of Uncle Fred. But who wanted him dead?