John Ranger, a music teacher, returns home to find his ex-partner, Madeleine, dead in the kitchen with her throat cut. In the garden is the body of a man, shot in the head. Detained by the police, suspected of a double murder, he is unexpectedly released into the custody of Rupert Balls, an enigmatic MI6 agent. Rupert takes Ranger to meet his boss Simon Sparrowhawk who, seems keen to recruit him.
When Ranger learns that Madeleine, an only child, is really Anna and was Russian - not Scottish, and that the man in the garden was her brother Sergei, an FSB agent, he realises the charade he was living for over ten years. With nothing to lose, Ranger accepts Sparrowhawk’s proposition and naively enters a world of lies, deceit and corruption.
When Ranger learns that Madeleine, an only child, is really Anna and was Russian - not Scottish, and that the man in the garden was her brother Sergei, an FSB agent, he realises the charade he was living for over ten years. With nothing to lose, Ranger accepts Sparrowhawk’s proposition and naively enters a world of lies, deceit and corruption.
