A fast-paced Scottish thriller with intrigue, deception, blackmail, betrayal, and bloody murder.

Tony Palmer, kingpin of Dundee’s underworld, leads a charmed life until the morning he wakes up beside a dead body. That’s when his life becomes a disaster zone where he risks losing everything.

Angel, the star pole dancer at Teasers nightclub, is savagely murdered in her bed, with Tony lying beside her.

This sets off a sequence of events that will change Tony's life forever. He has no memory of how he got there, although he had escorted Angel home after Jimmy Matthews, a Glasgow gangster, threatened her in Teasers. Tony doesn’t think he killed Angel, although in his befuddled state of mind, he can’t be totally sure. He removes all evidence of his presence at the murder scene and returns home.

DS Bill Murphy has been itching for enough evidence to convict Tony and is involved in the investigation into Angel’s murder. He is convinced Tony is responsible and pursues him, hoping to find enough evidence to convict him.

Jimmy Matthews, the vicious gangster who accosted Angel, is also on Tony’s trail. He has designs on Teasers and is determined to get rid of Tony and take his place as Dundee’s Mr Big. He has previous form for this, having left an Edinburgh nightclub owner wheelchair-bound after a violent takeover. Matthews focuses on getting to Tony by endangering his wife, Madge, who has been suffering from depression since the murder of her daughter.

Tony is caught up in a web of events. The police are closing in. DS Bill Murphy is hot on his trail, Jimmy Matthews and his gang are circling, and his wife is in danger. He has to find Angel’s killer before these events swallow him up.

Intrigue, deception, blackmail, betrayal, and bloody murder. A fast-paced Scottish thriller where nothing is ever the way it seems.

Chris Longmuir