Britain in the mid-1990s is a divided and violent nation where civil disorder and urban terrorism are on the increase. Commander Jack Bentham, a senior Scotland Yard detective already investigating shootings at a violent demonstration by radical nurses, finds himself seconded to Wales to look into a series of shootings by police officers in that province. As he probes deeper into both cases, Bentham uncovers a complex web of deceit which hints at corruption at the highest levels of the establishment.