BY THE TIME Detective Inspector Skelgill becomes the tenth person to be stranded on secluded Grisholm ('Pigs' Isle' in Old Norse) where a writers' retreat is taking place, one of the assembled literati is already dead. Though natural causes seem to provide the explanation, a second apparently accidental death and a series of inexplicable experiences convince Skelgill that a cold and calculating killer is at large. Set around Derwentwater in the English Lake District, this traditional whodunit sees Skelgill and his team striving to fathom a mystery that his superior officer suspects may be no more than his imagination at play.