James Westerfeld is a successful criminal barrister living in West London who prosecutes and defends those put before the courts in London and the South East. He is also an amateur racing driver. Having been invited to race his Lotus Cortina at the Goodwood Revival Meeting, he is having the time of his life in his race – until another driver, Bill Akely, has a huge and fatal accident right in front of him. Watching it happen, James nearly has a crash of his own.

Initially the cause of Bill's accident is thought to be simple driver error. Bill ran a highly successful race car preparation business,but aspects of how he ran his business are murky. Was he as clean as people thought? James gets sucked into the world of race car preparation by Bill's widow, Claire, who is suspicious about how her husband ran the company. As a result, James's life becomes considerably more dangerous. He is the subject of an attempt to kill him, he's kidnapped and he's accused of large scale drug dealing. He needs to find out who is behind this and why, before they succeed in getting him off the streets for good.