In this crime story a body of a woman is sent to the police surgeon by mistake. He discovers that she died not from cardiac weakness, but from an almost imperceptible wound made by a bicycle spoke - a method of murder peculiar to certain Bantu gangsters. James McClure won the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger for The Steam Pig and later won the Silver Dagger for one of his other novels. He has also written a number of short stories and two works of non-fiction on policing in Liverpool and San Diego.