Bored with her pop musician husband's sordid city life, anthropologist Impey Dalrymple leaves London for England's leafy Surrey Heath. For a genteel social life she joins Bisley Heath, a grand old golf club. Caught out by an unfortunate circumstance, Impey is soon plunged into trouble with the club's hierarchy. However when a prominent member of the club has a fatal accident, Impey has a chance to redeem herself. The insurance company involved want an insider to investigate. With her anthropological knowledge of animal societies and how animal behaviour replicates in human groups, the detective agency employed by the insurance company, reckon Impey is the ideal club member to research the prominent member's death. Impoverished by her divorce and a downturn in her earnings from journalism, Impey becomes a reluctant sleuth. As she delves beneath the surface of the upper crust members' lives, Impey finds even in the best mannered places, natured is still "red in tooth and claw." She notes the signs one of the club's best and most beautiful players is having an affair. And Impey's own Uncle George is employing a dominant strong-minded businessman, Derek Quartermain, who has a vested interest in the development of the clubhouse and looking after the grounds. Investigating the grounds, Impey finds traces of various poisonous substances. So when Brad, one of the green staff dies, Impey wonders whether there is a link with the death of Mike Gibbon, the prominent member. The more she delves into the lives of the entire club, the more Impey jeopardises her own social life. The girl friends she has made in the club and her uncle who introduced her to Bisley Heath would prefer her to stick to conventional behaviour, but Impey is driven to find out the truth. As she continues her investigation, not only her own life, but her much loved Uncle George is imperilled. Her one ally, ex SAS soldier, Roger Melbourne, nicknamed Dodger, stays on her side. The story is full of the colourful characters who inhabit golf clubs, but are replicated in other social groups. There are the natural leaders, the truth seeker, the joker, the temptress, the helper and many other types.