The idea of enjoying creeping along an underground alley in half-light was alien to me. But the secret of getting things done is to do them and not waste energy complaining.

A famous 19th-century shipwreck, a search for lost documents, a two million dollar heist, a Newcastle criminal family tearing itself apart, an undercover cop playing both sides against the middle, and an alluring but fiercely ambitious female journalist give Cliff Hardy all the trouble he can handle. What started as an almost academic exercise—tracing lost documents to do with the 1857 wreck of the SS Dunbar—explodes into a here-and-now power struggle between criminals, police, lovers, and unseen forces. The first person Hardy interviews is shot dead and the body count mounts as he pushes closer to the truth about the people, the documents, and the loot.