It began simply enough, a group of strangers on holiday meeting at a winter resort in the Italian Tirol. Within a matter of hours, though, after their return to England, one of their number would be dead, another missing, and the rest under suspicion of murder and other crimes. Was the death of the young woman found shot in the flat of the missing man merely a case of a holiday romance gone wrong? Or had the woman, whose life had seemed as mysterious as her death, been involved in some international criminal scheme involving counterfeit Bank of England notes? These are the questions that Chief Inspector Pointer must answer to resolve the mystery of The Paper Chase.