Not even a blizzard can keep barrister Rex Graves away from Swanmere Manor, a secluded Victorian hotel in the English countryside. But instead of Christmas cheer, he finds a dead guest.

Scottish Barrister Rex Graves and his fiancee Helen have traveled to Aston-on-Trent in Derbyshire, England to attend the wedding ceremony of one of Helen's former students. The dreary gray skies and bickering families underscore Rex's private reservations about the unlikely couple's long-term prospects. But when people connected to the ill-fated wedding start falling faster than the gloomy May rain, Rex must determine who among the sniping wedding...

After the death of a judge, barrister Rex Graves decides to investigate the suspicions of the judge's daughter that he was murdered, and after his encounter with a suspect leaves him drugged and beaten, Graves is more convinced than ever it was a homicide.