Sir Ray Bims is about to be charged as the principal in a Caribbean bank that’s laundering international drug money. Lord Grenwood, octogenarian chairman of Grenwood, Phipps, the London merchant bankers, is appalled. Three years ago he sold the Eel Bridge Rovers Football Club – known as the Eels – to Bims. The club was founded by Grenwood’s grandfather and is still associated with the Grenwoods in the public’s mind. Now his lordship wants to buy it back to avoid the suggestion of family involvement in Bims’s disgrace.

Only hours after refusing Grenwood’s offer for the Eels, Bims commits suicide – except that Detective-Inspector Jeckels of the Fulham CID concludes gradually that it was murder. And he discovers a string of people with motive and opportunity to dispose of Bims – among them the husband of Bims’s mistress; the Eels’ manager whom Bims had been about to fire; a well-known concert pianist; a curiously religious pest controller; not to mention several Eels players, and Bims’s wife and ex-wife.

‘Williams continues to astonish with his command of subtlety and assured comic invention’ Daily Telegraph

‘A nicely wily Williams whodunit’ Sunday Times