Jack Pascoe ended a well-earned holiday prematurely to pay an unscheduled visit to his laboratory. There he discovered that two of his partners, Sally and Liam Jennings, had taken advantage of his absence to steal the lynchpin of his cloning system, just when he'd been finally ready to share it with the world. In the days that followed, Jack would be assailed on all sides, as so-called friends and lovers joined forces with a disgruntled police officer and a shadowy character known only as The Dutchman, all determined to destroy him. Treachery, as Jack was about to discover, is a slippery slope. Until he found someone he could trust, something to stop an inevitable slide into the abyss, it seemed he would lose not only his laboratory and his freedom, but maybe his life too.