An unhappy wife is found dead in her bed, in circumstances that point to murder. Her husband, Roderick Strood, is arrested and put on trial. But before this happens we have become intimately acquainted not only with the Stroods and their problems, but with the individual members of the jury on whose verdict Roderick's fate is to depend. We see them first in their private lives, each unaware of the others' existence; watch them enter the jury-box; and finally go with them into the jury-room and hear them debating the issue of life and death. What is the truth? And what will the verdict be?

Gerald William Bullett (December 30, 1893 - January 3, 1958) was a British man of letters. He was known as a novelist, essayist, short story writer, critic and poet. He wrote both supernatural fiction and some children's literature.

Bullett was born in London and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. During World War II he worked for the BBC in London, and after the war was a radio broadcaster. Bullett also contributed to the Times Literary Supplement. Politically, Bullett described himself as a "liberal socialist" and claimed to detest "prudery, prohibition, blood sports, central heating, and literary tea parties".