Detective Inspector Henry Christie

has been suspended from duty. He''s spending quality time with his family, and is enjoying being reconciled with wife Kate, but at heart he''s bored - and itching to get back into the fray.

So when the attractive and wealthy mother of one of his daughter''s horse-riding friends asks him to investigate the bizarre mutilation of some of the family''s bloodstock, Christie agrees - against his better judgement.

He soon finds himself running down dead ends as he discovers that John Lloyd Wickson, Charlotte''s father and local multi-millionaire, has enemies in high places.

As Henry starts to ask some probing questions he finds himself caught up in a web of corruption and intrigue much wider and more complex than anything he had envisaged . . .