Jimmy Jenner has been working as a private detective since a terrorist bomb caused him to lose a leg, and his job on London's police force. He is hired to work on a straightforward divorce case, but the stakes are soon raised. Someone tries to murder a man resembling Jenner outside his local pub, then the subject of his divorce enquiries is found dead in Epping forest.

Jenner comes to realise he is himself a catalyst in these events. He has to question his own past, especially his family history and the accidental death of his elder brother, Joe, thirty years before. Joe was a minor criminal and peripheral member of the circle of murdered South London gangster, Tommy Slaughter. Was Joe's death what it seemed at the time? The answer may explain the violent events surrounding Jimmy Jenner now.