Jonathan Deigh returns to the south coast of England after a decade living the expat dream on the Spanish costas. In an attempt to connect with a daughter with whom over the years he’s had little contact, he sets about trying to create a stable home life. Eavesdropping on a conversation in a bar sets him up with a driving job for a Mr. Levi, club owner and eventual victor in a London based gangland turf war. To win this conflict, Levi mistakenly enrolls the help of his Russian family, headed by Vory hardman Vasily Aleyev. The new regime now vying for a share of the clubs spoils has unwittingly brought with it a sleeper within a terrorist group, waiting for an opportunity to strike at the heart of the Russian establishment. Never far from the centre of these London turf wars, long serving Met officer and consistent bung taker, George Mately decides it's time to choose a side. Under the influence of puppet and MI5 Spymaster Geoffrey Portman, Mately is primed to complete a mission that started three decades earlier. In the execution of his role as club van delivery driver, a traffic accident leads Deigh to discover the drugged and abused undercover figure of DI. Anna Markov, subordinate to George Matley. An unlikely alliance between Markov and Deigh is cemented further when Deigh’s daughter Kelsey disappears. Hope of a relevant lead from their enquiries quickly evaporates when the first floor of one of Levi’s clubs explodes, killing that evening's VIP guests. Amongst the casualties are the MP for Brighton Kemptown, Timothy Palling, now Secretary of State for International Trade and his opposite number, Alexei Kadyrov. It becomes obvious to both Deigh and Markov that their individual dilemmas are now being influenced by an international terrorist group sequestered within the gangland syndicate they were initially battling against. Deigh’s quest to find his daughter, he hopes, lays adjacent to Markov's plan to track down Mately and force him to confess to his part in the drug trafficking side of the clubs business. In turn clearing her late mother's name, DCI Inna Markov, who a couple of decades earlier fell victim to the younger Mately. A combination of Markov’s tactical training and Deigh’s natural street smarts provides the advantage needed to battle the two separate threats that Levi’s empire has begun to encompass. In a final confrontation with Levi’s main enforcer, Vasily, Deigh and Markov are overpowered and their fate seems decided. The pair however, are able to escape when in a bid for his own survival Andrai, the terrorist sleeper and Levi’s second in command, battles with Vasily in a fight to the death. The last chapter describes an account of a thirty year journey that ties together the seemingly random lives of the main protagonists within the story. How, soon to be retired head of MI5, Geoffrey Portman, plotted for more than three decades to avenge the death of his first love, Katherine. Portman’s bid to assassinate the polit bureau member Alexei Kadyrov who had sanctioned the hit on Katherine as an example of Russian defiance to western meddling, could never be given state approval. Leaving Portman to contrive a scenario that lacked state culpability. His first attempt in the 1990,s using an IRA plot had failed, leaving Portman's opportunity for redress even more difficult to achieve, as Kadyrov's sequestered position and power increased. To achieve his aim, manipulating a Chechen terrorist cell to believe their decisions are completely autonomous, will take all of Portman's guile and experience.