The disappearance of a supermodel is sensational enough for the quiet town of Merrydale, but it sparks the unfolding of a broad web of criminal activity bringing together unsolved cases from the past, as well as revealing embarrassing secrets about well-known personalities, one in particular causing ructions. Central to it all is a highly sophisticated yet brutal criminal gang which hitherto has proved impossible to pin down by police forces in various parts of the country, enabling them to carry on their nefarious activities unchecked, including the neatly conducted but violent elimination...

Harry is tormented to distraction by tragic ill-fortune and takes refuge in increasingly bizarre behaviour and imagination, rebellious, frustrated, and angry. Because of it he is suspended from his job as a school teacher, shuts himself away, and spends much time at the typewriter trawling through his immediate past, his current plight and visions of a nightmare future. Harry's personal crisis is intertwined with his biting criticisms of contemporary England and fearful predictions of where it is heading. He envisages total breakdown in a disordered and polluted land, where the means of...