Lachlan Doyle is the product of a Scottish doctor and a Maori mother. Orphaned wile still young, Lachlan has one great ambition, to be a detective with the New Zealand CIB.He achieves that ambition and is posted to Dunedin. This is hardly likely to win the young detective notice and national attention. But when a woman is found dead in her own home, apparently having fallen down the stairs and broken her neck, Lachlan decides to dig beneath the surface. Soon he is convinced he has on his hands a case of murder. And no ordinary case, for he is being urged by colleagues and superiors to keep the case under wraps. Lachlan refuses to be deterred. Soon he finds himself in very deep water, with his own life at stake, for the death of one woman leads right to the top, to the office of the Prime Minister himself. This is, in every sense, a political affair.