After his adventures in Substantial Threat, Detective Inspector Henry Christie has been suspended from duty. He's spending quality time with his family, and is enjoying being reconciled with wife Kate, but at heart he's bored - and itching to get back into the fray. So when the attractive and wealthy mother of one of his daughter's horse-riding friends asks him to investigate the bizarre mutilation of some of the family's bloodstock, Christie agrees - against his better judgement. He soon finds himself running down dead ends as he discovers that John Lloyd Wickson, Charlotte's father and local multi-millionaire, has enemies in high places. As Henry starts to ask some probing questions he finds himself caught up in a web of corruption and intrigue much wider and more complex than anything he had envisaged..