It started the night a safe-cracker was shot on a Stepney street by a soft-spoken killer. Through an ingenious piece of detection - and with the help of his underworld friends - Tommy Hambledon succeeded in identifying the killer as the notorious Louis Magid. The problem was to find a man so vicious and so feared that even the criminals let him walk alone. The trail led to a small French village, an old castle and a mysterious woman. And, as Hambledon discovered in crime the female of the species is indeed deadlier than the male.