He is to investigate Danny Caxton who was a crooner in the late fifties then a popular (and sexy) television host and celebrity entertainer in the sixties to the eighties and early nineties.

But Monaghan, an assistant to Caxton, turns out to have been murdered two months later in suspicious circumstances and his body is discovered in public toilets known at the time to be frequented by gay men.

The case files of the death have disappeared, and the Chief Constable at the time, who was a friend of Caxton, was dismissed in a drug-related corruption scandal some years later.

DI Annie Cabbot is investigating the death of a teenage girl; her battered naked body was found on a country road, and she turns out to be fifteen.

Eventually a friend of her brother confesses to picking her up and beating her to death; he did not like her consorting with Pakis (Pakistanis) who have been grooming and paying her.