One unremarkable winter morning, civil servant Richard Eusden is on his way to work in London when he is intercepted by his ex-wife, Gemma. She has sad news of his old friend, her other ex-husband, Marty Hewitson. Marty is dying, but needs one last favour done for him now, today, at once.

Eusden reluctantly agrees. But what should be a simple errand soon turns into a race for life - his and Marty's. It takes him across Belgium, Germany and Denmark and on into the Nordic heart of a mystery that somehow connects Marty's long-dead grandfather, Clem Hewitson, a police officer, with the tragic fate of the Russian Royal Family, murdered ninety years earlier.

Robert Goddard was born in Hampshire and read History at Cambridge. His first novel, Past Caring, was an instant bestseller. His first Harry Barnett novel, Into the Blue, was winner of the first WH Smith Thumping Good Read Award and was dramatised for TV, starring John Thaw.

David Rintoul played the lead role of Doctor Finlay for five years, and his other television credits include Hornblower and Andrew Sweet in Sweet Medicine. An experienced stage actor, he has starred as Edward III for the RSC, while other credits include The Winslow Boy, Putting it Together, The White Devil and Remembrance of Things Past at the Royal National Theatre.