The final part of the trilogy is set in 1958.

When the mutilated body of a respected local landowner is discovered on the outskirts of a sleepy Sussex village, a stretched rural constabulary calls for specialist help from the Metropolitan Police.

It arrives in the form of cynical and irreverent London copper; Walter Mullins.

Mullins sets about unraveling the facts, unaware that he is about to enter a murky and dangerous world of international espionage and government conspiracy.

In a parallel activity, small-time Cockney villain, Harry Chadwick is released from prison, after serving ten years for a crime he didn’t commit.

Harry visits an old friend, in an effort to find and punish those responsible for the injustice, but is dismayed to find that an imposter has assumed his friend’s identity.

Worse is to follow, because the impostor now wants to kill the only man left who can identify him as such. . . the luckless Harry Chadwick.

In desperation Harry runs to Mullins, who provides protection of a sort, but when a government-backed assassination squad comes calling, this unlikeliest of duos set about dealing with the government, the CIA, London’s criminal underworld, and the deadly and all-powerful Children of Etzel.