'I want you to find someone,' Deborah said. 'And who would that be?' I asked. 'Me', she said. 'I want you to find me.' The distinction between right and wrong is embedded deep in Bristol private eye Jack Shepherd. Deborah Thorne employs Shepherd to find her and promptly disappears. Who is she hiding from? Then a body surfaces in the mud of the Severn Estuary and is identified as Deborah’s therapist and a former client of Shepherd.

A prominent millionaire disappears, and as the headlines grow more cynical by the day, Jack Shepherd knows that his search for a missing retired bookie can only end in misery. But in accepting May Marsh's commission to find her husband, Shepherd doesn't anticipate how high the odds stacked against him are as he is pitched into a world of ruthless exploitation, unbending violence and a heart-stopping confrontation with old enemies - the city's criminal royalty, the Settle family.