When Montague Pluke, England's most eccentric detective, and international authority on horse troughs, visits the Italian town of Siena he is determined to find the world famous Golden Trough of Siena. As it has not been seen for six hundred years, he has to use all his detective skills to trace it back to a small folk museum on the North York Moors. When Pluke arrives to examine a miniature replica in the form of a snuffbox, not only has it been recently stolen, but he has a mysterious family secret and a sinister curse to contend with...
Montague Pluke, the trough-collecting detective, is more entertainingly idiosyncratic than ever... On a quest for the legendary Holy Trough of Blackamoor, Detective Inspector Montague Pluke comes across a corpse; the dead man, Pluke discovers, has been shot in the head. When it is established that the victim was a suspect in a murder investigation the eccentric Pluke is pitched headlong into an investigation which spans both sides of the Pennines, leading him from the beauty of the great outdoors, to the seamy backstreets of Manchester. Protected by his rabbit's foot, rowan twig, double hazelnut and lucky blackthorn shillelagh, Pluke insinuates himself into a murderous criminal gang. What could possibly go wrong?
Detective Inspector Montague Pluke, of CID, is England's most superstitious police officer. With crime at its lowest level for years, he decides to conduct a cold-case review. But there are no major unsolved crimes so, alerted by his wife, Millicent, to a large number of recent deaths - his expert knowledge of superstitions and folklore lead him to justify re-opening a case. Could an undetected mass-murderer be operating in Crickledale? Many of the deceased attend Crickledale Voluntary Carers and he quickly produces a list of possible suspects. Indeed, the entire team of carers falls under suspicion - and DI Pluke's wife, Millicent, is one of them.