"Will Britain succeed in expelling a troublesome left-wing African country from the Commonwealth, or will the showdown be something far more dramatic - the assassination of Britain's leader at the Prime Ministers' Conference? Only Chief Inspector Coltman knows what is being planned, but he cannot reveal his sources without endangering his own position in Special Branch. It falls to Johnny Vincent, late of the Australian police, to track down the elusive professional killer the Africans are employing. Yet he cannot know that Daumier, the ageing recruiter of mercenaries, has selected a woman to eliminate Margaret Thatcher, not because of a perverse sense of humour, but because Madame Nicole is one of the coolest and most efficient professionals in the European underworld."