Thirty years ago, the British Miners' Strike threatened to tear england apart, turning neighbor against neighbor, husband against wife, father against son-enmities which still smolder.

Charlie Resnick, recently promoted to Detective Inspector and ambivalent, at best, about some of the police tactics used in the Strike, had run a surveillance-gathering unit at the heart of the dispute.

Now, in virtual retirement, the discovery of the body of a young woman who disappeared during the Strike brings Resnick back to the front line to assist in the investigation into the woman's murder-forcing him to confront his past-in what will assuredly be his last case . . . as well as John's Harvey's final Charlie Resnick novel.