Ex doctor and soldier turned private eye has survived into the 1980s. He is asked to find out what happened to the body of a young woman after a gasline digger exposes an empty coffin in a churchyard. This means going back into his favourite decade, the 1960s. Also a young girl from India has been savagely gang-raped and Phillips has to locate the protagonists. He is in for a busy time. Dark humour and savage acts pervade the life of this 1930s private eye set in 1980s Britain.