All traces of self-esteem have been brutally stripped from Malachy Kitchen, an Intelligence officer posted to Iraq. He is accused of cowardice while on patrol with an infantry platoon ambushed by insurgents. Word spreads that he ran under hostile fire. In the military family there is no worse crime. Humiliated and broken, kicked out of the army, Malachy sinks into despair. He becomes an isolated recluse in a drug-infested London estate. But the mugging of an elderly widow by addicts lights a flame that draws him to fight to regain his lost pride. His target is the network of narcotics traders. Pushers, dealers, suppliers are that network, and at their head is Ricky Capel, a crime baron importing heroin into the UK. Untouchable up to now, Capel will have to confront an enemy more driven than any of the policemen he has so far successfully outwitted.
