Mrs. Pargeter doesn't much like diets. She never felt any need to change her own pleasingly ample figure, but she's happy enough to accompany her slimming-obsessed friend Kim Thurrock for a few days' stay at the exclusive Brotherton Hall health spa. There's one condition, however.

Mrs. Pargeter must receive a special "allergy treatment" featuring the choice delicacies of a cordon bleu chef and an excellent wine list. Suitably assured of rich food and drink, she relaxes and looks forward to a luxurious rest.

Until ... she sees two men wheeling away a young girl's body. Never one to let a murder go unsolved, Mrs. Pargeter sets off on a dangerous trail of inquiry through the pretensions and occasional charlatanism of the health-and-fitness game. It's a trail that brings her up against many of her late husband's "business associates" - among them, the lugubrious private eye Truffler Mason, journalist Ellie Fenchurch, Brotherton Hall's manager "Ankle-Deep" Arkwright, surgical specialist "Jack the Knife," and the enigmatic Stan the Stapler.

But can she trust them all, or were some involved in the notorious betrayal of the late Mr. Pargeter summed up in the one ominous word "Streatham"? In typically unflappable style, Mrs. Pargeter rides through the investigation - from Brotherton Hall to London's King's Cross, through Cambridge University to a Dead Sea mud bath - in search of the villain.

Justice will prevail. One way or another, Mrs. Pargeter will get her pound of flesh. The fourth excursion for this irrepressible widow, Mrs. Pargeter's Pound of Flesh is bound to bring even more enthusiastic fans to Simon Brett's masterly series of mysteries.