When Detective Constable Keen is assigned to investigate a hit and run, his first assumption is that this is a regrettable accident. The case is clear enough: John Noyes was walking to a local shop when he was hit by a car and seriously injured. And Keen has enough to worry about at the moment, for his wife has just left him, unable to cope with the pressures of his career, and he isn't exactly in the mood to go looking for trouble. But it looks as if trouble has come looking for him. When Noyes dies in hospital, Keen's subsequent investigations lead him to believe that this was no accident, but a carefully planned murder, perhaps involving one of the town's most influential men, Cedric Searle. So perhaps he shouldn't be too surprised when none of his superior officers is willing to let him open that particular can of worms. But Keen persists, and in connecting the death of John Searle with one at sea nearly forty years ago, Keen soon realises that what he has unearthed will not only alter his life, but will also put it at terrible risk .