Alexander Kinloch found solitude and a steady income painting in a bothy on a remote Scottish mountain. Until the morning the strangers arrived to rough him up, and Alexander was dragged reluctantly back into the real and violent world he thought he had left behind. Millions of pounds are missing from his stepfather's business. A valuable racehorse is under threat. Then comes the first ugly death and the end of all Alexander's doubts. For the honour of the Kinlochs he will face the strangers.....committed up to the hilt.

Andrew Douglas works for a company specializing in returning kidnap victims to their families. Italy's foremost woman jockey is kidnapped, then a racehorse owner's son and finally the Senior Steward of the Jockey Club.

Sid Halley, the ex-champion jockey turned investigator, is back. He has uncovered an obnoxious crime committed by a friend whom he - and everyone else - has held in deep affection. On the morning set for the opening of the friend's trial, at which Sid is due to be called as a witness, other people's miseries explode and send him spinning into days of hard rational detection and heart-searching torment.