A man dies of thirst in an isolated shed with a full carafe of water beside him… Another is stabbed in a pergola surrounded by a sea of mud, but there are no other footprints… People are dying at an alarming rate, people with no apparent connection to one another save for a cryptic painting sent to the police before each murder. That, and the fact that each crime appears to have been impossible to execute. The paintings have a common theme: each contains a coded reference to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Enter Owen Burns, Edwardian dilettante and amateur sleuth, whose assistance is often sought by Scotland Yard to solve baffling crimes. Burns regards murder as an art form and is dazzled by the creativity of the mysterious killer, whose motive and methods are more baffling with each new murder.