Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard is seriously worried about cases of child molestation and murder. Meanwhile, London has been subject to sustained power cuts - what is behind them? Is it problems with the electrical supply, or even some form of economic difficulty, or does organised crime somehow feature and be taking advantage of the confusion and darkness caused by the pattern of ''outages''? As always, Gideon finds the solutions to his problems are not as at first expected.