In this fifth mystery featuring Inspector "Jacko" Jackson, the death of a tabloid journalist puts Jacko on the trail of a mysterious doctor who may be carrying on the grisly legacy of his Nazi father by conducting experiments on human beings. The one man who holds the key to this dark puzzle is found hanged in his prison cell, taking the dreadful secrets of the past with him to the grave. Left only with a page of barely comprehensible shorthand notes and a barman with a boozer's memory, Jacko travels from the isolated reaches of England's east coast to the back streets of Amsterdam. There, he joins forces with an exotic and beautiful Dutch policewoman in what becomes a desperate race against time to save the life of the doctor's latest patient - if only they can uncover the identity of the renegade criminal.