Tony Byrne left his Belfast home to go to work and vanished off the street for no apparent reason. His mysterious disappearance gave rise to all sorts of rumours. Some claiming he was an IRA informer who had taken up residence under the latest stretch of motorway. Others had him running off for an illicit romance with someone he'd met on one of his frequent trips abroad. But the most plausible, and probably the most acceptable, at least to those who knew him, had him down as the unfortunate victim of a random sectarian killing. So who did take Tony Byrne? Was it the IRA? Was it the UDA? Or did Tony Byrne have his own, more personal reasons for not wanting to be found? With their investigation stalled, the police have unofficially accepted that he probably was the victim of a sectarian killing, and have all but parked the case. But the missing man's wife, sensing that the police are losing interest, takes matters into her own hands and hires a private investigator to continue the search. The man she hires is Jack Brennan -- former SAS member turned private detective.

Jack's investigation soon leads him into conflict with a local IRA activist, and a gang of ruthless racketeers when he unearths a link between them and the missing man. A link that the police had failed to uncover. With his own life under threat, he needs someone to negotiate a truce with the paramilitaries. But in a troubled hot-house like war torn Belfast, who can he turn to that both he, and the paramilitaries, will find acceptable? In the end he has little choice, although his chosen go-between comes from an unlikely source indeed.