Detective Sergeant Gil Mayo has a problem on his hands. Even Lavenstock isn't immune, these days, from the threat of drugs infiltrating into what was hitherto a town noted only for nice, ordinary crime. In the fight against drugs, his team seems to be getting nowhere. But when a member of a well-known and respected family is killed, inquiries take another direction.

As Mayo and his assistant Abigail Moon plunge into the investigation of this murder and more of the unsavoury details of the victim's private life are revealed, it becomes not simply a question of who had a motive to kill him, but who didn't: any of his shady associates, his ex-business partner, the woman he's currently having an affair with, or the family of social drop-outs living in the condemned house by the river. Even his family doesn't escape scrutiny, for the victim's marriage had been on the rocks and his father-in-law hated him.

But as Mayo and Abigail finally uncover the truth it becomes clear the murder was not an end, but a beginning—the first link in a chain of further death and destruction...