Mr Labinski is the newly appointed managing director of an ailing British shoe company, and he has plans to bring the company back into profit: weed out incompetent managers, sack half the workforce and transfer most of the production to sweatshops in India.

The shocking news means bankruptcy for a small local supplier and a heart attack for its manageress, Tina Grimston. Enraged by Labinski's refusal to talk about the situation, Tina's husband threatens violent revenge on Labinski. When the executive is run down and killed by Grimston's Land Rover, Cambridgeshire's DCI Sidney Walsh and his team hope for an open and shut case -- only to discover that Grimston has a cast-iron alibi. And the deeper they delve, the more suspects with motives they uncover...