In this explosive follow-up to This is a Dreadful Sentence, featuring Gina Gray and DCI Scott, a twelve-year-old girl is killed, pushed down the stairs at her home and beaten over the head with a golf club. Scott leads the investigation and finds himself crossing paths again with Gina, a university lecturer, linguistics expert, harassed daughter, mother and grandmother, and all-round know-all and busybody.

Gina's daughter, Ellie, was the dead girl's teacher and when the police suspect her of involvement in the murder, Gina steps into the fray and launches her own parallel investigation. What she lacks in forensic evidence and IT wizardry she makes up for in linguistic acuteness, an extensive network of informants and sheer chutzpah. Scott is determined that she will be kept well away from the inquiry but a serious attempt on her life persuades him to work with her again and together they bring the case to a startling conclusion. Gina's view of the world is often comic but the crime she unravels is as wicked as it is possible to be.

Penny cites Susan Hill and Kate Atkinson among her inspirations. `I love murder mysteries,' she says, `but there aren't enough good female detectives, and those there are fail to convince as having the kinds of lives most women lead. There's not enough multi-tasking!'