Joshua Gruber is one of London’s top murder detectives. He has an instinct about what motivates individuals to kill because he has killed before.

He is called to the scene of a suspicious death and finds that the body is that of Charles Crown, the boy he had tried to kill when they were both seven years old. Charles is a barrister but also a slum landlord and a blackmailer in business with a Romanian thug called Anton. Joshua’s investigations take him to Romania where there are several attempts on his life.

With a trail of bodies in his wake, Joshua is now in a state. When he returns to London, his job is threatened and his wife throws him out of the house. The body count is rising. Joshua and his boss Binns find that Anton is not what he purports to be. The stakes go beyond the sordid business that Charles was running: of underage rent boys and whores and then blackmailing the very same clients who used them.

This is a gripping and compelling story where less than savoury deeds have to be done and a world where people have to do dirty deals to survive!