Maddening missing motive. Enjoying a hard-earned "life of Riley", Max Montford is crushed when his comfortable world suddenly collapses around his ears, first of all with a police bombshell that he is to be charged with complicity in his wife's murder, and then with an equally dangerous accusation of financial wrongdoing. Some unknown person, with a massive grudge, is targeting him, and he hasn't the first clue who it can be. Forbidden to enter the offices where he works, he needs something to occupy his enquiring mind. Because he is at a loose end, his boss, Ben Sanders, asks if he is willing to look into the death and disappearance of his brother, Roger, twenty-five years earlier, when he and his Army comrades were about to unveil the dumping place of a hoard of Nazi gold, and offers a minimum of a million pounds for the job. Max, though unwilling, takes on the task, and finds that Roger is not only still alive, but is an international assassin. Taking his life in his hands, he foils Roger as he is about to murder a public figure, They become unlikely friends, and with Roger's help, Max comes face to face with his nemesis, who presents him a life or death choice that he is unwilling to make, but the life of Charleen, his longtime lover, is the price of a wrong decision. He is faced with an impossible situation...