A worker is killed in the striking coalfields of south Wales. Some months later a government minister suspected of being connected with the death is shot. Lewis Redfern, once a radical, now a political analyst and journalist, pursues the killer, a lonely hunt that leads him through a maze of government leaks and international politics to a secret organization: a source of insurrection far more powerful than anyone could have suspected. A compelling thriller, The Volunteers is also an engrossing reminder of the conflict between moral choice and political loyalty for through his obsessive pursuit of justice, Redfern finally encounters the truth about himself.