'It should have been me,' cries Chief Inspector David Warne, over his wife's broken, dead body, the price for putting a London crime boss inside. Now, in the Garden of England, he searches for the killer of the gay heir of a prominent local family, headed by an industrialist from his Lancashire home town. North/South, past/present, white/black, gay/straight, justice/injustice are the themes. The 2003 invasion of Iraq is imminent, and Warne has just been on the big London demo against it. Who is the killer he seeks? What's the connection between the industrialist and the crime boss? What horror will the past reveal? Will Warne ever again find love?