An engagement party at venerable Marsden Manor serves up annoyances big and small for Bright Young Thing Philippa Darling and her cousins, Christopher and Francis Astley.

There’s the scheming Lady Laetitia Marsden, now engaged to Christopher’s and Francis’s cousin (and Pippa’s personal nemesis) Crispin, Viscount St George.

There’s Laetitia’s brother, the handsy Lord Geoffrey, and his proclivity for trying to seduce anything in a skirt—by force, if necessary.

There’s the general feeling of ill-will towards Pippa’s and Christopher’s new friend the Graf von und zu Natterdorff—including the tension between the Graf and Francis, left over from the war Francis fought against the Germans.

There’s the handful of Crispin’s old flames who have received invitations, one of whom is expecting a child, and who is remarkably close-mouthed about exactly whose child it is.

And then, of course, there is the murder, and the other murder, and the attempted murder, and the other attempted murder…

All in all, it’s not quite the relaxing weekend in Dorset Pippa had expected, but what’s a girl to do when life serves up one mystery after another?