'Super-sleuth Phryne Fisher is sojourning at Cave House, a Gothic mansion in the heart of Gippsland mountain country. But she soon discovers that her host is receiving death threats, someone is setting lethal traps and the parlourmaid has been strangled to death...How does this connect with a pair of young lovers, an extremely eccentric swagman and an angry outcast heir? Just who is responsible for the mysterious funerary urns which keep appearing around the house?...Phryne's search draws her deep into the darkest dungeons of the house and of the limestone Buchan Caves. Who knows what she will unearth this time.' (Source: back cover, 1996 Penguin edition)