Sid Halley, the ex-champion jockey turned investigator who appears in Odds Against and Whip Hand, is back and facing new dilemmas and dangers. The opening finds him having uncovered an obnoxious crime committed by a friend whom he, and everyone else, has held in affection bordering on love. On the morning set for the opening of the friend's trial, at which Sid is due to be called as a witness, other people's miseries explode and send him spinning into pulverizing days of hard, rational detection, and heart-searching torments. Troubled, courageous, and unwilling to admit defeat, for Sid Halley it is business as usual.