What could be more fun than a Christmas party? Sally Ewing, having suffered some years of depression, is persuaded to reinstate the family's annual Christmas party. Things are gong well when the arrival of Santa is announced and the guests take it in turn to visit him in the study. As supper is announced, one missing guest is discovered dead, in the study. DCI Charles Davenport and his DS Fiona Macdonald are two of the guests and their social evening ends up as the start of a murder investigation.

This is the fourth book in the Davenport series. It's April and the start of the tennis season at Greenway Tennis Club on the South side of Glasgow. Some of the juniors have just finished their first coaching session. Two girls go to one of the changing rooms and discover the body of an intermediate girl. DCI Davenport and his team are called in to investigate but before the denouement in the upstairs room of the tennis club, there are to be two more deaths.