After ten years away, ex-boxer Floyd Carter comes back for his brother’s funeral, and to decide what’s to be done with his other brother, the lumbering Ludo whose mental age is barely twelve. But if Ludo knows anything it is that Albie’s death was not an accident. And if Floyd knows anything it is that he will have to sort things out.

In case he thought he had a choice, he is quickly confronted by local hoods who claim that Albie owes ten thousand pounds. And ‘Snake’ Carmichael, upscale nightclub owner and drug supplier to the recently renovated Isle of Dogs, wants Floyd Carter in his team. But was Carmichael behind Albie’s death? Or were the Richardsons involved?

Floyd’s old friend Jamie is hooked on drugs. And Suzie Peters, Floyd’s one-time teenage flame, has an eighteen-year-old mixed-race daughter who sings in Carmichael’s club. Floyd thought his fighting days were over. They aren’t yet.