When a dilapidated cargo ship sinks, killing the illegal immigrants packed in below decks, the man responsible goes free, but not for long. Two weeks later hi is found dead in bed with a knife in his back.

Human trafficker Thomas Blackburn lived and died in the heart of London's West Indian community and, when the attitude of the local murder squad Chief Superintendent is deemed likely to aggravate race relations, George Gently is called in to oversee the case.

But as tempers flare within the community, fuelling the fires of racial conflict, time is not on his side . . .