When aesthete and society snob Francis Richmond died, he believed that no one would ever remember him. But he left behind him a diary, and when his heir, a young out- of-work actor, comes across it, he takes it to the newspapers. Digby Price, owner of News Universal, wants revenge. He wants to destroy the Minister for Defence Procurement, Richard Tancred - and Richmond's diary tells of Tancred's involvement with a millionaire industrialist. Price publishes. Tancred sues. As Price's council, Mordecai Ledbury QC prepares to meet his thrusting young opponent Patrick Foxley in the libel court, the industrialist commits suicide. Tancred's fate seems sealed.But Tancred is planing his own courtroom exposure. What he has to reveal is more tragic than the political shame Richmond thought he had stumbled across. Impossible to put down, this is brilliant courtroom drama with a plot that moves like clockwork and an ending that has a real sting in its tail.