Two men share a common history. Growing up together in the small town of Barton-Upon-Humber in Lincolnshire, England, Peter Knott is everything that Brian Plender wishes he were. Knott is suave, good-looking, an exemplary student and popular. The friendship they maintain is as important to Plender as it is forgettable to Knott, and eventually leads to a lasting humiliation for Brian.

Years later Brian Plender is a dangerous man — a private investigator who specialises in extortion, blackmail, and intimidation. Knott meanwhile is a family man adrift, beholden to his wife for money.

When, at a bar he uses to set up marks, Plender spots Knott with a girl way too young to be his wife he decides to follow the pair and see what happens. What follows is an edge-of-your-seat trip into a nightmare story that manages to be both incredibly creepy and eerily profound.

'Seize the opportunity to read this prime example of Brit Grit that present-day practitioners such as J.J. Connelly and Jake Arnott have imitated but never bettered.' — Library Journal Starred Review

'One of the most coldly brilliant crime novels you will ever read.' — Washington Post

'Ted Lewis cuts to the bone.' — James Sallis, author of Drive, Sarah Jane and many more