The story is set in Clachaig, a fictional village on the west coast of Argyll in Scotland. The time is the near future. The narrator and protagonist is Graeme Maxwell, a retired teacher whose wife has recently died. He has moved to Clachaig because he feels he must move on from his grief and try to find another reason for living.

He begins to make friends, three in particular. There’s Layla, who’s ten years old and needs help with her maths. There’s Andrew, a minister of the church with a decidedly unorthodox view of how we should deal with evil. And there’s Amanda, who’s hot as hell, but more than a little crazy.

Clachaig seems idyllic, a haven of peace removed from the madness created by Britain’s far right government. But Layla’s father has a past, and out of that past come the forces of evil, threatening to destroy Layla’s family. Graeme and Amanda agree with Andrew that the police cannot provide protection 24/7 and they themselves must do whatever is necessary. That leads them down a dangerous, violent road, facing first a ruthless Glasgow gangster and then a police superintendent who is hand in glove with the government. Graeme has to cope with the screaming objections of his own conscience, the plague of insomnia, and his obsessive fear of going to jail. The net closes in on him. But salvation may arrive, from an unlikely source…