Acting DCI Charlie Priest and his reliable crew at Heckley Police Headquarters are presented with a bizarre murder that leads to the discovery of low-tech industrial espionage. But is selling your employer's confidential records enough to warrant a particularly sadistic murder? Appearances deceive, and it transpires that the victim was an unprepossessing character who may have been chosen simply because of his physical appearance. Happily settled with his new girlfriend, Priest is able to throw himself wholeheartedly into his work. Unfortunately, all is not well in his team of hand-picked detectives, and old enmities begin to surface. Another victim is murdered in even more bizarre circumstances, and Charlie begins to wonder if he himself is a catalyst that motivates the killer. When his suspicions are confirmed he realises that he is embroiled in much more than a hunt for a murderer. And that the case has now become personal.