The burden of work for the East Anglian town of Breydon's small CID team, headed by DI George Pascal, usually light, is about to become a whole lot heavier. The problems begin with the discovery of a young man who is found unconscious with a serious head wound on a quayside in one of the small fishing harbours on the Norfolk coast, and the disappearance of a teenage girl. The team's investigations lead them to become involved with abduction, murder, arson and sex-trafficking, to say nothing of the embezzlement of a substantial sum which was meant to pay for a supply of drugs. And drug dealers are unforgiving of that sort of thing...