Not yet thirty, ex-Police Constable Terry Davis, with a gaping throat wound as though a spiked glove or some wild animal - a pit bull terrier? - had done it, isn't expected to live. Forced to resign for accepting unauthorized hospitality from a known criminal, he had set himself up as a private investigator and paid informant to a Sunday tabloid. The only witness to this savage attack is a blind man. When a full-scale murder hunt gets underway, Detective Inspector "Jacko" Jackson and Detective Sergeant Caroline Parker, probing Davis's nefarious dealings - some very close to "home" - unearth a sinister connection with the unsolved drowning of a teenage girl. Through stealth, patience, and finally, justifiable deception, an unexpected solution to a brutal killing is reached and a tragic story of misplaced loyalty revealed. This first novel by a Nottingham journalist displays degrees of inventiveness, pure expertise, and narrative power that ensure him a successful career as a writer of crime fiction.