The novel's central character is Joe Rapps, a director-cameraman. At the start of the novel, Rapps is released from Wandsworth prison, where he was imprisoned for accidentally killing two children while driving drunk. The novel is a thriller featuring a plot involving a mysterious woman in white who shoots canines, an atheist bishop, an academic suspected of having sex with a slew of Norland nannies then burying them in churchyard graves, a Russian countess hellbent on avenging Diana's death on 31 August 1997 and a stand-in who takes Prince Charles's place without anyone becoming the wiser.