Special Branch Detective Constable John Gallagher is seconded to a British Home Office Statistical Unit for what he considers a minor violation of trust. He's not well pleased; he knows nothing of statistics and had been hoping for a much less boring end to his year. To this very day, the summer of 1966 is revered by all of England as the year the Jules Rimet World Cup trophy came back to the home of football but behind all the excitement another, deadlier, game was being played, one with ...

Almost a decade after finding himself working for a shadowy Government department, ex-Detective John Gallagher is sent on a task that will become his most testing yet. Armed only with a two inch revolver, 12 bullets, some cryptic clues and a sense of humour, his mission is to assist a high ranking East German foreign intelligence operative to defect to the West.

The MIT's DCI Thurstan Baddeley reluctantly recognises the return of an old adversary but as if that wasn't enough, there's a complication in their equation, an encrypted clue, a puzzle that leads to a personal and professional dilemma for them both.