Vancouver history professor Gillian Adams and Scotland Yard Detective Chief Inspector Edward Gisborne meet in Cambridge, England, for what becomes a working vacation after chemist Wendy Fowler is found dead in a university laboratory. Clever and unashamedly ambitious, Wendy was resented by some of her male academic colleagues; her habitual brusqueness put off even the women with whom she did volunteer work at the local pregnancy counseling center. Loaned to the Cambridge constabulary, Edward looks for a killer who clearly had inside knowledge of the lab's setup. Meanwhile Gillian, whose friend Bee Hamilton also works at the counseling center, keeps those there apprised of the investigation, which heats up when a teenage client is found in a shallow grave in woods not far from Bee's home.