August, 1946. A couple are returning to a country house they last saw in the last weekend of August, 1939. Then a group of friends had gathered to say goodbye to American novelist and socialite Georgina Riley who had passage booked for New York the following week. She was to marry her childhood sweetheart in the coming weeks, and they were unlikely to see her again for some time.

The guests are:

Professor John Haskins, an expert on the American Civil War, and critic of Georgina's fiction;

Erica Ringold, late twenties, a struggling author, former pupil and lover of Professor Haskins.

Rosemary Morely, mid-twenties, upper middle class but poor, father spent the family wealth before committing suicide;

Peter Henderby, ex-public school, near-penniless tennis coach and RAF reserve pilot;

Robert Morely, Rosemary's younger brother, a would-be artist of the modern school;

Jessica Goodchild, eighteen, Robert Morely's muse and devotee;

Frieda Rosenberg, supposedly an eighteen-year-old Jewish refugee from Germany;

Nigel Johnson, self-proclaimed socialist and aspiring poet;

During a Saturday afternoon lazing in the sun drinking, and a Saturday evening partying, they ascribe to each other the names of the original Greek muses according to best fit: Calliope; Clio; Erato; Euterpe; Melpomene; Polymnia; Terpsichore; Thalia; Urania. There is also a great deal of putting down coming from Georgina, who, apart from Haskins, is the only one financially secure.

The following morning Georgina's maid is discovered dead; Georgina, given the muse Melpomene, or tragedy, herself is in a coma from loss of blood. A tiara Georgina had flaunted the day before has disappeared. A lugubrious Chief Inspector Rudman turns up to investigate, but there is nothing he can do before they go their different ways. War is declared a week later, and the members of the party are scattered across the world.

But Rudman is tenacious, if not fanatic. He might be confined to his patch of south-east England, but he keeps tabs on each one, where they are, which military units they have joined, who has married, who has not made it. As time goes by each responds to demands made by the war in a way that proves any one of them capable of murder.

One becomes a master player in the vicious black market that permeates the war. Another joins the commandoes and gains a reputation for silent killing with a bayonet. Urania runs missions to the French Resistance, during one of which the only way to escape is by knifing German guards. Erato is arrested by the police after attacking his girlfriend with a knife in a drunken rage. Thalia delights in killing German fliers.

And then the war is over and peace returns. In August 1946 the survivors receive an invitation to return to Longwood for another weekend. During which Rudman intends to unmask a killer. It could be one of those who never made it. It could be someone who had become a good friend during shared tribulations. Or it could be one amongst the couples who married during the war. Rudman is the only one amongst them who doesn't care who it turns out to be, so long as he gets his killer.