When veteran police sergeant, Jim Calder, agrees to look after a sealed package for old friend and Special Branch detective, Richard Baseheart, he has little idea what he is getting himself into, but soon he has cause to regret his decision when the package is stolen from the back seat of his parked car and Baseheart mysteriously disappears.

Against a background of rapidly deteriorating public order in the countdown to the first police strike for over a hundred years, Calder finds himself drawn ever deeper into a cesspit of deceit, corruption and murder.

Only when the final drama is played out on riot torn streets does he learn the whole truth.

But sometimes even the truth brings no sign of relief.