Hugo Fitzduane, former soldier and battle-scarred war photographer, is no stranger to death.  But to discover a young man's corpse hanging from a tree on his own island chills him to the core.  There has to be a reason for this senseless death and Fitzduane is compelled to seek it out . . .
So begins a trail of death and intricately devised destruction which leads from Ireland to a once-peaceful Switzerland, now the lair of an international terrorist known only as The Hangman.  This is a man for whom blood-letting is both a business and a pleasure and whose only philosophy is profit.  Now The Hangman is planning his last and greatest coup and into his orbit steps the dangerously curious Fitzduane - straight into The Hangman's noose.