Once again Jude and Carole are outsiders in a murder investigation. For once, these amateur sleuths are believable. They're totally aware they have no information and that they are cut off from the real investigation. So, they try to gather clues from others who are peripheral to the case: Imogen Potton, a young girl who exercises the horses and mucks out the stable; Lucinda Fleet, wife of the murder victim; Sonia, who boards two horses at the stables and seems to know more than she's saying; Donal, a horse-wise Irishman whom the police questioned; Hilary Potton, Imogen's mother who seems a bit of a drama queen; and Ted Crisp, who runs the local pub and hears lots of interesting gossip.

While Jude would like to find the killer, she's not overly enthused about it. Carole on the other hand is worried about her son Stephen's marriage to Gabe. She's throwing herself into the investigation to stop herself from thinking about her son and daughter-in-law.

There are twists and turns and lots of the usual. The mystery itself is multi-layered throws in clues from unrelated incidents to throw the reader off as well as Jude and Carole. It's not a challenging mystery for the reader, but the characters are so interesting and the inter-relationships so intriguing that as long as the story is strong and engaging it's a nice chance to see and learn new things about the world of Feathering as well as of Jude and Carole -- it seems opposites do make the best friends after all.