'As I wandered off to complete my task my head purred. I felt absurdly confident and inexplicably happy at the prospect of the murder I was about to commit'. When local businessman Stanley Jakes is bludgeoned to death in the bandstand on Southsea seafront just before the onset of the Second World War his murder is pinned on young dockyard apprentice Billy Cosgrove. Any lingering doubt about Billy's guilt is seemingly extinguished when he absconds leaving a blood stained hammer hidden beneath floorboards in his bedroom. But out of the blue, twelve years later a terminally ill prisoner serving time on the Isle of Wight confesses to the murder; a confession with a unique and disturbing dimension. And so begins a long and tortuous search for the truth. William Goldhawk who had been Billy's best friend follows the clues and is pulled into a world of villainy, high level corruption, espionage and international political intrigue. William soon realises that rather than being an outsider looking in, his own past is inextricably linked with the mystery. Nothing is as it seems.....