A security breach (in itself unimportant) at a British Embassy in West Africa leads to the arrival there of an investigator from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This extremely unpleasant man causes such disruption among the staff that when he is found dead in extremely bizarre circumstances any one of half a dozen people could have killed him. One principle thread of the story is the Ambassador's unrequited love for his PA, who also turns out to have very special reasons for wanting the investigator dead. The principle characters include the robustly effective local police chief, a whisky-loving military attach and a Levantine attach at the embassy. The story is a black comedy with a serious element to it and reflects the author's love/hate relationship with West Africa.