`Mr Wills Crofts is deservedly a first favourite with all who want a real puzzle` - Times Literary Supplement `He always manages to give us something that really keeps us guessing` - Daily Mirror George Surridge, director of the Birmington Zoo, is a man with many worries: his marriage is collapsing; his finances are insecure; and an outbreak of disease threatens the animals in his care. As Surridge`s debts mount and the pressure on him increases, he begins to dream of miracle solutions. But is he cunning enough to turn his dreams into reality - and could he commit the most devious murder in pursuit of his goals? This ingenious crime novel, with its unusual `inverted` structure and sympathetic portrait of a man on the edge, is one of the greatest works by this highly respected author. The elaborate means of murder devised by Crofts`s characters is perhaps unsurpassed in English crime fiction for its ostentatious intricacy.