The body of a suspected blackmailer poses a problem for Bergerac. The elderly corpse has been discovered on a deserted Jersey beach. While Bergerac investigates the man's shady past, the mainland is being threatened by a nationwide programme of IRA assassinations.
At first the connection is unclear, but as scarlet fever sweeps through Jersey, Bergerac enlists the help of the doctor to uncover the origins of the epidemic. In doing so, he finds he can trace the steps of one of its carriers a man now deadly in more ways than one and discover how, and why, the blackmailer died."
