The author, seen here visiting Lucerne, Switzerland, is an award-winning writer who in 2000 moved permanently from northern England to New Hampshire with his wife Catharine, a native of Oklahoma whom he met at Zurich. A graduate of London University and an accomplished linguist, he uses his experiences teaching and traveling in Europe as authentic settings for his successful series of mystery novels. In this, his latest Inspector Mason assignment, a prominent surgeon is found dead of a broken neck while out hiking at an English beauty spot. Was his death an accident, or was it foul play? If the latter, was his fate connected with his past life in Germany, or with his current medical practice? George Mason, of Scotland Yard Special Branch, in a case that takes him to some lesser-known corners of England, as well as to Switzerland and Germany, gets drawn into some very gray areas of modern medicine and a possible Europe-wide criminal conspiracy.