Work goes on the backburner for Inspector Carlyle as he tries to manage his father's final days. But when the drug dealer providing the old man's pain relief ends up dead London's least conventional copper finds himself in the middle of a vicious East London turf war. Meantime he is supposed to be dealing with the case of a young woman found badly beaten in an alleyway. With no idea who she is and no clues as to her attacker he has to get help from some unlikely sources.

Part of the The Inspector Carlyle Series series.