December, 1940. New Year's Eve approaches but there will be no revellers celebrating on the streets of London this year. After a quiet Christmas, the city has just suffered its most devastating air raid since the opening days of the Blitz. Paternoster Row, the centre of British book publishing, is obliterated overnight. Among the survivors is an antiquarian book dealer who escapes death - only to die that very night, shot dead in his Soho flat and the priceless volume he had just acquired is missing - did someone covet it enough to kill for it? In his search for the murderer, the Blitz Detective DI John Jago uncovers a hidden world of obsessive book collectors and unscrupulous dealers. And as he investigates, he finds himself drawn deeper into the Soho underworld, where criminal gangs are fighting their own private war - and even perhaps printing their own money.