When a wealthy woman is found murdered after planning her own funeral service, disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, author Anthony Horowitz, investigate. London. Diana Cowper, wealthy mother of a famous actor, goes to a funeral parlor to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. Disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator, is assigned to the case. Hawthorne decides he needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz. Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself a the center of a story he cannot control.

When a wealthy woman is found murdered after planning her own funeral service, disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, author Anthony Horowitz, investigate.