Leaving Rose with her grandfather, John Rawlings takes the stagecoach towards Exeter. His fellow passengers include a talkative German woman, a dance master and the formidable bare-knuckle fighter Jack Beef, known as the Black Pyramid. Their journey is interrupted at the Half Moon Inn when a man is found brutally murdered.
The enclosed world of coach travel turns strangers into reluctant companions and possible suspects, and Rawlings is drawn into the investigation despite his intention to travel without trouble. Inns, prizefighting and the uncertain social mixture of the road provide the background to a crime in which identity and first impressions repeatedly mislead. To find the killer, Rawlings must learn what each passenger was carrying besides luggage.
