Alan Parker cannot bring himself to tell his wife that he has lost his job. Each day he goes off to 'work', leaving her in both ignorance and trusting her little ambitions for them will be met. Other than playing out this particular deception, Alan is generally honest and intensely loyal, but that all changes when he happens across a child after an accident and then meets her mother, with whom he forms a friendship. The double life he then leads is exposed when the child goes missing and the police commence an investigation, with suspicion falling directly upon him. There are yet more twists to be found in 'Devil's Work', one of Margaret Yorke's highly regarded novels.