Charlie Colquhoun is a burnt out journalist. His old school friend Harris Hill is a lawyer at the top of his game. Their lives are smashed together by one name - Tommy Stirling, Charlie's daughter, a fostered teenage pregnancy who has become embroiled in an alleged child pornography scandal with a top ranking police officer. As the trail to Tommy begins to heat up, so the bodies begin to mount up. Allegiances fall by the wayside as Charlie's life begins to spiral out of control and the deadly world of drugs, blackmail and murder that lies in the deepest heart of the underworld threatens to consume him and his missing daughter forever.

It's General Election day 1964, and the resources of Forth and Clyde Television are under stress. Too many shows want too many things done too quickly. Some of the design and graphics staff are intent on not getting involved. Others won't survive the strain.

In this diverse and inventive autobiography, painter and author John Byrne travels from his youth, through his art school years to the period of his stage and TV plays, and on to his death, sometime in the future. With him is Robbie Coltrane as himself and as a shamus invented by Byrne, who discovers there are as many aspects to the author as there are actors playing him.