Shortly after unveiling an unpopular plan to turn Hartley Gorman College, a small Baptist college in Texas, into a diploma mill, Dean Elmore is found bludgeoned to death at his desk.

Stars, starlets, floozies and factotums of the film world - Gervase Fen suspects them all. When young actress Gloria Scott throws herself from Waterloo Bridge, the news sends shockwaves through her film studio. Luckily Gervase Fen, Oxford Don and amateur criminologist, is around to investigate. But when someone acts fast to cover up any evidence - removing all signs of Ms Scott's identity from her apartment and poisoning a suspicious cameraman - the...