From dingy jazz bars and run-down estates private investigator Des McGinlay hunts down cheating husbands, when he's not staring into the bottom of a pint, that is. Dumped by his girlfriend and with business grinding to a halt it's hard to keep his head above water. So when the mother of a murdered prostitute hires him to track down her killer Des sees his chance to turn things around. Pounding the streets of Birmingham, Des trawls the backstreets to uncover what the police are happy to ignore. But as the clues come to the surface, suspicion falls all around: the photographer; the dopehead; the right-wing politician. Down in the canalside pubs and blues parties, Des picks his way through the wreckage of the murdered woman's life - but soon finds out no one is playing by the rules.