When a retired local government officer is killed by a karate chop while strolling in a West Mindland Park, the police drag their heels and suppress information. The dead man’s sole relative, an Australian historian, arrives in Britain in response to a peculiar letter from her grandfather and consults the old man’s solicitor.
Chris Tyroll, off-beat anarchist lawyer, defends anyone, from Irish travellers to Nazi bootboys. He takes up her case and together they are sucked into a mystery which involves another killing, government agents, a private security force, burglaries, frame-ups and fire bombs.
As the action moves from a Black Country town into the hills of Wales, Tyroll and his client are threatened by escalating violence and aided by strange friends, while the lawyer and the lady develop a new relationship before they succeed in unravelling the secrets of a faded photograph and revealing the consequences of a long-forgotten crime.