PI Frank Doy's short-break holiday in Prague is rudely interrupted when he steps into a street fight outside his boutique hotel and helps a man being badly beaten in an attempted abduction. The unfortunate victim is Leon Podolsky, a wealthy Russian dissident based in the city. He and his two sisters run a global business empire and publish an online Russian-language newspaper critical of the Kremlin. Frank meets the Podolskys at a time when they are under siege. A grateful Leon offers Frank security work, partly back in England where the family have acquired a ruined country mansion, The Chesters, in Northumberland. But first he wants him to provide back-up at peace talks in Montenegro. The talks don't go well, and Leon's assassination is narrowly averted. And security arrangements at The Chesters fail to stop a devastating arson attack. Beset by betrayal and intolerable pressure, the job is turning out to be far more than Frank had envisaged. It is time to change tack and go on the offensive. And where better to start than Prague, where it all began?