When Ron Crusher is forced at gunpoint onto the parapet of a twelve-storey office block in the centre of Unsworth, he suspects that he's being used to distract the police while a criminal gang escapes and that his life will be spared. After all, he can't recall any grudges from his army days in Northern Ireland and he doubts there is any connection with Milo Morrell, local club-owner and supplier who is offloading cocaine in order to go legit. But just minutes later, he is sent plunging to his death, splattered across the pavement below without ever knowing why. Meanwhile, Sam Carew, ex-cop turned builder and private detective, is hired to go undercover to discover if Joey Gladstone, cruise ship crooner and self-confessed ladies man, is cheating on his wife. When he departs for Bridgetown, Barbados, where the Caribbean Rose is currently docked, little does Sam know that he will be drawn into the investigation of Ron Crusher's apparently motiveless murder, which will take him back to the murky depths of Unsworth's criminal underworld.