February 13th: what seemed like Wilma Fenton's lucky night, when she scooped her biggest-ever win at bingo, turned out to be the night she died at the hands of someone lurking in the dimly-lit alleyway leading to her flat.

And what seems to be a lucky break - there was an eyewitness to the whole incident - turns out to be a complication, for the man who saw the murder committed is Tony Baker, a well-known journalist and TV personality who, almost twenty years ago, single-handedly tracked down a serial killer who had eluded the police. Did Baker see more than he claims? Does he want to beat the police to the punch again?

What seems like a minor complication turns out to be the trigger for a deadly chain of events, as the man the media will come to call the Anonymous Assassin publicly announces he will kill again, and challenges Baker to catch him before he does. In the full glare of the national media, Bartonshire police are to mount a huge, force-wide hunt for the killer, with Detective Chief Inspectors Lloyd and Hill and their hastily constituted team spearheading the investigation.

Faced with a series of random killings and an increasingly hostile press, Lloyd and Hill, still learning to cope with the personal challenges of marriage, an energetic two-year-old daughter, and a live-in mother-in-law, must tackle their most difficult professional challenge yet . . .