The year is 1970. Off the Normandy coast a fisherman is killed on board his own small fishing boat. But this is no fishing accident; this is murder, a petty squabble between criminals, this is the grubby world of smuggling and drug running.
Twenty Two years later Nick Beverley inherits, on his 25th birthday, shares in a company founded by his uncle, the dead fisherman, and his murderous partner. But in that time the company has prospered, it is respectable, a multi-million pound trading organisation. It has taken advantage of the Thatcherite principles of greed, unrestricted free market economics, the elimination of bureaucratic economic planning. The murderer himself is at the heart of government; in an ironic twist he is now President of the Board of Trade.
Nick goes to work for the company, he assimilates all those Thatcherite principles; he is a willing convert. But this is now just post Thatcher Britain, the busted flush of those principles is becoming apparent, the cost to the country becoming clearer, the fact that the ordinary people were not sharing in the illusionary prosperity.
Then fate raises an eyebrow. The company mounts a hostile bid for a haulage company based in Normandy. In France Nick uncovers the company's murky past, bit by bit he puts the pieces together. The company he has dedicated his future to, is founded on criminality, drug money. He meets a remarkable French girl, the daughter of his late uncle's widow. Through her he starts to challenge everything that the company stands for - and he doesn't like the conclusions that he comes to.
A thriller, a story of high finance, a story of intrigue, and a story of love and redemption.