A personal discovery course is Richard Speke's last chance to recover his shattered nerve and save his job as a frontline TV reporter. With more hope than expectation he presents himself at the venue – the penthouse suite of a brand-new, indeed unfinished, London skyscraper, Lazaire's Hotel.
Richard barely has time to meet Dr Miriam Graves and the others on the course – among them a former tennis star, a workaholic advertising executive, a grieving widower and a man terrified of heights – before odd things start to happen.
The seven people on the course have never met before, should have nothing in common but their neuroses. So why do their memories raise echoes in one another's minds? Each one has a guilty secret, but how can they all share the same one?
Then the only lift currently reaching the top of Lazaire's Hotel suddenly becomes inoperative; so does the telephone. The penthouse is now effectively isolated form the city, but the group no longer seems to be alone . . .
Then one of them is brutally attacked.
There's plenty of personal discovery in store – for those who survive the course . . .