Big drug dealer Ralph Ember stumbles on a ghastly surprise when he and sidekick Beau Derek arrive at the house of yachtsman Barney Coss, his bulk supplier: Barney and his two women have been savagely murdered and the murderers, three drug rivals from London, are still in the house. Beau dies quickly at their hands; they let Ralph go for the moment but he's a marked man because of what he's seen. When Melanie, Beau's alluring, ruthless girlfriend, learns what has happened, she is bent on revenge and wants Ralph as her partner all the way. Bill James's latest Harpur & Iles police procedural ratchets up the tension as the cops (the brilliant Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur and his ungovernable, half-cracked superior, Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles) fight the drug barons for control of the city. As a body washes up, and one of the London creeps meets a violent end, the wily Ralph finds himself starting a new, very risky career and Harpur sorts out what's going on just in time."