The most unusual case of Superintendent Peter Diamond. Bath police are on alert - John Mountjoy, sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a Swedish journalist, has escaped from prison. Moreover, he managed to return to Bath and take hostage the daughter of a local high-ranking police official. Mountjoy's only demand is a reinvestigation of his case. He claims that he did not commit the murder...Did Diamond, who led the case, make a mistake? Was it really because of him that an innocent person suffered? Step by step, the detective tries to understand what he missed many years ago...