The murder comes much to Slider's family's disgust during his week off, saving him from the horrors of a trip to the shopping centre with his two older children. The late Mr Lionel Bygood, who looks, to all intents and purposes, like an old-fashioned sort of gentleman, has been bashed in the head with a bronze statue, in what Doc Cameron describes as 'our old friend the Frenzied Attack'. It soon emerges that Mr Bygood was a philanthropist, well-known locally for giving help and advice to all who needed it, from all walks of life. But with all signs pointing to the victim knowing his killer, Slider and his team find themselves embroiled in an investigation that provides scant evidence or possible motive, but all too many suspects.