Rachel James is shot through her kitchen window early one morning, while having breakfast. She was having an affair with Dr. Julian Storrs, an Oxford professor who is a candidate for Master of Lonsdale College. When her next-door neighbour also is killed, Morse determines that the shooting of James may have been in error. He also suspects that the neighbour, Owens, may have been a blackmailer. Both Storrs and his rival for the position of Master, Denis Cornford, had secrets that would make them suspects. Morse determines that several others also had things to hide, and that any one of them could have committed the murders.
—garykmcd