An American visiting London makes the mistake of checking the personals column...the “agony column”...and finds himself mixed up in murder!

The “agony column” of the title refers to the personal columns (or “personal notices”) of English newspapers where it was the custom for young people to solicit the acquaintance of others they had seen in passing (the twentieth century version of dating apps almost!).

The hero, a shy American Geoffrey West, decides to also resort to this medium in order to get to know a fellow American girl that has taken his fancy who he has seen in the same hotel dining room, reading and enjoying the Agony Column. She does respond, via her own ad placed in the paper. But she wants him to write a letter to her each day for seven days and at the end she’ll determine if he’s someone she’d like to actually meet. Having started off as interesting in the beginning, each day the letters get more alarming and mysterious and West becomes the witness to a crime—a murder!