Gil Cunningham returns to his old university for the Nicholas Feast, where he and his colleagues are entertained by a play presented by some of the students. One of the actors, William Irvine, is later found murdered and Gil assisted by Alys, begins to dis

"And you are telling me," said Gil Cunningham, "that David Drummond vanished away forty years ago and is now returned, seemingly not a day older?" "That's about the sum of it," agreed Sir William Stewart.
In Sir William's remote part of Scotland it seems almost possible that a young boy could have been stolen away by the fairies and returned forty years later, no older - and if he isn't Davie Drummond, who is he? And then he suffers a succession of near-fatal 'accidents'.
Could there be a connection with four other local singers who have vanished, one of them with...

How could the heavily-pregnant bride of the lanimer-man vanish into thin air?
Young Mistress Audrey Madur is missing and her husband, responsible for maintaining boundaries and overseeing land use in the burgh of Lanark, is strangely reluctant to search for her.
Gil Cunningham, answering the frantic appeal of Audrey's mother, finds himself searching the burgh and the lands round about, questioning family and neighbors. He and Alys uncover disagreements, feuds, adultery and murder, and encounter once again the flamboyant French lady Olympe Archibecque, who is not at all what she...