John Leith is an easy-going Edinburgh accountant, a widower with a young son, and a long-standing relationship with an attractive woman which neither wants to turn into marriage.Suddenly his life is disturbed when he is attacked in his office, his flat searched and vandalised, and his sister's home broken into. John can discern no reason for the incidents but as the violence against him steps up he begins to feel like a tethered goat and is drawn willy-nilly into the activities of his uncle's detective agency, which seems to offer his best hope of protection, to say nothing of discovering what lies behind these unprovoked attacks.But when his unknown enemies turn their attention to those who matter most to him, John Leith discovers that he too can use violence when necessary, and Margaret McKinlay's first novel reaches a shattering climax as the identity of the villains and their true motive are finally unmasked.