In London in 1926 the atmosphere is strained as the country is nearing the prospect of a General Strike. Harris Stuyvesant, a US Bureau of Investigation agent is searching for the perpetrator of a series of bomb attacks in the USA. He meets with discouragement from most of the British officials he meets but then he is sent to see Aldous Carstairs who takes up his cause. Carstairs is a rather creepy character who presents as much danger when he is on your side as when he is against you. Carstairs wants to embroil a man called Bennett Grey in his activities and sees Harris as a way of getting Bennett out of his seclusion in Cornwall.

The story takes Harris to stay at a stately home with his new friend, Bennett, a man whose First World War injuries have left him with unique abilities in sensing other people's emotions.

The story carries the reader along with its events and the speculations about the resolution of the strike to be reached. One's sympathies with the attitudes of people of very differing views are fully aroused. Speculations about the eventual outcome are realised in unexpected ways; when the denouement is reached it seems an inevitable climax. This is a stimulating book.