Professor Margaret Spence Eliot is behind in the work she needs to finish before she begins her new position as the Weingarten Fellow at Merrion College, Oxford. With the new term starting in just a few days, she has shut herself in her rooms so she can prepare without distractions.However, before she can catch up, she discovers the body of a visiting professor in Oxford's Botanical Garden. A few hours later, a member of Merrion's staff is found murdered in the rooms of the same colleague.Complicating things is the reappearance of Crispin, who works for a secretive government agency run by a friend of Maggie's. Crispin has helped Maggie in the past and their relationship did not remain platonic. He refuses to tell Maggie why he has come to Oxford and Maggie is finding it difficult to keep the man at a distance.So why are people being killed at Merrion? And what do the murderers want with her? Just how much can Maggie tell her husband Thomas before he demands that she return to the safety of Gloucestershire? And if Maggie does flee back to the Cotswold countryside, will the assassins give up and leave her alone?