Just before the start of the Christmas festivities, two very different women manage to turn West Midland lawyer Chris Tyroll’s lofe upside down. One is his Australian fiancee, Sheila McKenna who arrives unexpectedly ay Heathrow and, to Chris’s delight, announces that she has arranged a year’s sabbatical in England. The other is the less shapely, but equally beguiling Granny Cassidy who persuades Chris, against his better judgement, to take on the appeal of a man who has served twelve years for armed robbery.
As Chris and Sheila delve into the eighteen-year-old Belstone Lane case, troublesome enmities are awakened and witnesses are silenced - sometimes by murder. Repeated threats put the duo in danger and soon it is very clear that someone somewhere will stop at nothing to ensure the case remains permanently closed. But who and why?
A complicated trail of lies and forgeries have to be unravelled before Chris and Sheila begin to understand how the law has been perverted to pursue a private revenge.