The cold-blooded murder of Kevin Rees, Auxiliary Nurse at the private Howell Clinic for stroke victims, is greeted with apparent sorrow by all who knew him - well, nearly all. 'A born nurse' is the summation of his professional qualities by colleagues and patients alike. But is Dr Edwin Howell, maverick neuro-psychiatrist, and co-owner of the clinic just saving face when he anxiously divines the crime was the work of a burglar? Only when DCI Merlin Parry rejects such a facile solution and digs deeper into Rees's background do the unsavoury aspects of the young man's life emerge. But many of those who knew him seem intent on withholding information from the police. Practise to Deceive is an intriguing and elegant mystery from the pen of an accomplished writer.