The death of a movie star is always a disaster, but the mysterious drowning of Henry Brook at a party on the set of the epic thriller "The Lazarus Gambit" has ramifications no one expects. That's what brings Anna Peters into the story: Independence Murual had insured both the movie and the star, and they're facing a massive payout if the death is accidental. But it's all too clear that when Brook went off the end of the pier and drowned in the shallow, freezing waters of the lake, there were those who would have been happy to give him the push that might have taken him over. And there's always the possibility that the star, beset by problems, had decided that the cold embrace of the waters had more to offer than the warm embrace of the young starlet with whom he'd been linked...