Private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways is staying at Cabot University, an Ivy League university near Boston, while he undertakes some research. There he encounters the Ahlberg brothers - Chester, Assistant Senior Tutor in the Business School, Mark, who lectures in the English Faculty and their half-brother, Josiah, a professor of Classics.

Private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways is invited to address the Maiden Astbury literary society. The town is home to Bunnett's Brewery, run by the much feared Eustace Bunnett. When a body is found in one of the brewery's vats, boiled down to its bones, Nigel is called into action to help capture the killer.

Several days after private detective and poet Nigel Strangeways dines with Dr. Piers Loudon and his family, the doctor vanishes, only for his legless corpse to be fished out of the river Thames. When his family asks Nigel to protect their interests during the police investigation, it soon becomes apparent that each member of the deceased's family, from his adopted son to his daughter's unpleasant fiancee, had a strong motive for killing him. As the winter fog swirls outside, Nigel must find his way through a maze of conflicting stories, missing diaries and red herrings.