When Victoria Pryde opens her racing paper and reads that a horse called Mr Pryde is dead, she hopes that it's just a sick joke. But she has a nasty feeling that there might be more to the announcement than meets the eye. For her husband Edward has been missing for two weeks - and with good reason: he's run up massive gambling debts and his chief creditor, an unscrupulous bookie, has been leaning on him very heavily.

Then comes the discovery of his burnt-out Jaguar, with the charred remains of a body in the boot, a body which the police identify as Edward's..