Dragged half dead from a river, Ben Bracken, fugitive ex-soldier, is in a bad way. But, too valuable to discard and too dangerous to set free, an old friend offers him a choice: abandon his identity and become a desk-bound advisor to the National Crime Agency, or go back to the prison he broke out of - a place where he is extremely unpopular. Bracken is forced to accept - and he's becoming a different man. But all this changes when, days before Christmas, an undercover narcotics officer is murdered in horrific circumstances, and only Bracken has the inside track on the key suspect. Throwing himself into the fray, Bracken finds himself in a very present-day ideological conflict, uncovering a plot which has huge implications for both Manchester's political, socio-economic landscape, and the nation at large - coming to an explosive conclusion amidst the twinkling fairy lights and frost-tipped boughs of Christmas Eve...