Dandy Gilver goes undercover as young Mrs Balfour's new maid. It's just that that nice young Mr Balfour is going to kill his wife. At least, she thinks so, and the more she hears about him from the butler, cook and bootboy the more she's inclined to agree.

"It's the breezy Scottish summer of 1936 and aristocratic sleuth Dandy Gilver, along with trusted colleague Alec Osborne, has been called to solve the strange case of the Cramond Ferrywoman, on the Firth of Forth. From their cheerless digs in a local stately home, Dandy and Alec track Vesper Kemp, the ferrywoman, to a tiny tidal island. She seems to have lost her mind, roaming the beaches in rags, ranting about snakes and mercury. What is even more...

"Something sinister is afoot in the streets of Dundee, when a puppeteer is found murdered behind his striped Punch and Judy stand, as children sit cross-legged drinking ginger beer. At once, Dandy Gilver's seemingly-innocuous investigation into plagiarism takes a darker turn. The gruesome death seems to be inextricably bound to the gloomy offices of Doig's Publishers, its secrets hidden in the real stories behind their girls' magazines The Rosie Cheek...