Payback

When the wife of London gangster, Benny Lyle, Stern’s most hated enemy, arrives in Norfolk and asks for help to find her kidnapped husband, Stern finds himself in a dilemma. Why should he help a man who, in the past, has discredited and humiliated him? But though Stern is now out of the police force, he is a policeman at heart and kidnap is a crime. Besides, since his abduction Lyle is said to have been seen in North Norfolk and that’s Stern’s turf. The Norfolk police have been facing a spate of violent attacks against ethnic minority groups, the latest victim of which has died. Stern is told about the Norfolk Young National Front, a group suspected of the attacks, but there is no proof and the police can’t move. Now vicious retaliatory clubbings are happening in the back streets of Norwich. Stern’s involvement in both the Lyle kidnapping and the Norfolk attacks leads him to discover a link between the two. But that link is too close for comfort and for the first time in his life Stern’s unshakable belief and dedication to the rule of law is tested to the extreme.