Following her marriage break-up, radio producer and hapless amateur sleuth Veronica Pilchard moves to Wild Fern Alley behind the university in Belfast. Her only friends are Lady Margaret Beightin and some of the gay scene in the Golden Palace. Veronica discovers a young Italian imprisoned in the basement of an obnoxious professor's house next door. When the professor's body is found there, the police launch a murder investigation but have no leads...