Arthur Bayly has an ordinary life, marriage and job. He’s bored. He hates them in his quaintly gentle way. He dreams of dangerous adventures. He arrives at work to find he is being stood down in suspicious circumstances and his dreams of being a James Bond come to fruition, all too dangerously.

Meanwhile, Mary had moved to London from Scotland, hoping for wealth and romance. Apart from a lingering affair with her sometimes-available boss, neither of these hopes eventuated … till she and Arthur are thrown into an insurance scandal that involves Britain’s foreign aid...