The sudden death of overweight 49-year-old Thomas Whibley sparks off an acrimonious furor in Bayswater, and sparks fly between rival diet doctors, vegetarians, and the extremist Pure Food Society. Young sleuth Frances Doughty is hired to find the author of anonymous libels, when a former colleague of Whibley's, Hubert Sweetman, who has served 14 years in prison for a violent robbery he claims he did not commit, asks her to trace his estranged family. Before she can start, however, the police arrive and arrest her client for the murder of his wife. There will be more murders and a vicious attack on Frances before she finally resolves a number of knotty questions. Is Hubert Sweetman really innocent? Where are his missing children? And who wielded the poisoned pen?