A woman is killed in a hotel room and minutes later drunken Harry Hatton is arrested leaving the room and tried for murder. He is found guilty and his daughter Alison lodges an appeal. Sarah Swithen, his brief, engages Kavanagh,now chambers head and in the running to become a judge,who takes on the case against advice that it could harm his appointment. Private detective Mark Yelland proves that another man was in the murder room on the day -Rayner,the head of a computer firm,possibly engaged in illegal government work,and the dead woman was not an escort,as believed, but a computer expert. Kavanagh suspects a conspiracy,especially when he must forfeit his post as a judge to head the appeal and a frosty female justice chairing the appeal does not inspire confidence. Fortunately for Kavanagh, Mark and Sarah share his commitment to bending the rules to obtain justice though he regards it as a bitter victory where “noone won.“