Seven friends decide to band together to campaign to save the environment. They call themselves the Martians, because, as everyone knows, Martians are green! Over the years, they go their separate ways and some of them seem to have forgotten their early ideals. Then, out of the blue, one of their number is murdered: struck down by an unknown assailant. Another of the group comes under suspicion and yet a third member is implicated. Did geology tutor Martin Riess kill his journalist friend or was the murderer one of the victims of the reporter's caustic pen? Was the crime sparked off by recent events or does it have its origins deep in the past? Why is the victim's politician wife apparently uninterested in her husband's fate? Detective Inspector Peter Johns grapples with these questions as he tries to get to the bottom of a high-profile crime that could make or break his career and his marriage. This is the fifth full-length novel featuring DI Peter Johns and his wife, Bernie. It is a detective novel set in Oxford.