The 1980s have begun, and 57 year old Joseph Tremaine Ellington has long abandoned his former career as an enquiry agent for the safety of teaching in a Bristol school. When the wife of a Baptist minister vanishes into a dead-end world of users and abusers, leaving behind both her infant daughter, Ellington is asked if he can help find her. In this fifth outing (after A Sinner's Prayer), Ellington is paying a debt of honor to a friend as he plunges into the chaos once again.