Michael Gereon lives with his estranged wife Peggy in a decayed house in the East End of London. The same house in which his mother was battered to death in a drug-deal gone wrong when he was sixteen.
A psychiatrist thinks Michael has delusions inherited from his mother.
Michael thinks every one else is deluded, since they don't realise they are puppets subject to random forces beyond their control.
When paintings suspected to be forgeries by Michael's best friend appear on the London art circuit, a chain of murderous events is set in motion. Michael's sanity, and his philosophical doubts, are tested to the limit.
A relentless, haunting study of alienation in a world of corruption and lurking violence, set in the atmospheric streets of Spitalfields.