An old man suffering from the implacable advance of Alzheimer's is found dead, an empty morphine vial by his side: obviously suicide. Or did someone - a loving son, perhaps, help him die? Who would blame him? But Graham Russo insists he had nothing to do with his father's death. A claim, that as more and more incriminating evidence comes to light, even his lawyer, Dismas Hardy, finds increasingly hard to believe. But despite his unease about his engaging but unreliable client, Hardy knows there is no way he can abandon Russo when the politicians turn him into the pawn at the heart of the media issue of the year...