It is 1999 and Northern lreland is an independent state. Behind the scenes old hatreds continue to fester, but something is different. For the first time in decades, the people are united. Prime ministerial candidate Michael Brinn is poised for a landslide victory on the 'peace in our time' ticket. And everyone believes in him. Everyone, that is, except Dan Starkey, a hard-drinking, 30-something hack who refuses to swallow the spiel.However, when Starkey is caught by his wife in the arms of a girl he hardly knows, he discovers that he and Brinn are destined to become more than casual acquaintances. The girl, Margaret McGarry, is the daughter of Brinn's right-hand man. And within hours of seducing Starkey, she has been shot dead in a bed still warm from their love-making. Before Margaret, Starkey had always made it a point of principle to keep out of the political fray, preferring instead to snipe at both sides from the safety of his weekly newspaper column. Now his quest to find her killers, rescue his floundering marriage and save his country, leads him directly to its rotten heart.