A dazzling dawn breaks over the Stonehenge midwinter solstice, where the assembled new-age revellers are horrified to discover a green-painted human hand dangling from beneath a mound of snow, high on one of the stone lintels.
Leading the investigation into this peculiar death is DI Shanti Joyce and her partner, Vincent Caine. To Shanti''s chagrin the pair have become known as ''the go-to team for weird stuff in the West Country'' and this festive fatality is the mother and Father Christmas of odd and ritualistic crimes.
Amidst the swirling flurries of Salisbury Plain, the unlikely duo discover that the deceased is none other than Hector Lovell-Finch, the eccentric Earl of Lovell Court, known to all as ''Finch'' - and who also happens to be the father of the notoriously right-wing MP, Quentin Lovell-Finch.
It is no secret that relations between father and son have become decidedly frosty since Finch''s acrimonious divorce from Quentin''s mother, hi
