A man and a young woman are found blasted away by a rifle in a remote farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors. But where is the farmer, why did he have such swanky furniture in his living room, and who on earth are the victims? Charlie Woodend isn't amused with the people who are getting under his feet as he starts to grapple with these questions, but his steps are abruptly halted when the Deputy Chief Constable decides that, this time, Woodend's high-handedness has gone too far. Woodend may have been suspended but his sense of justice can't let go. And it won't let go however much resistance he encounters and from whom. But as Woodend is depressed to discover, when the people who are determined to keep you down are all-powerful, sheer will-power just isn't enough.