An ex-Naval officer salvages a landing craft from the rocks of a Cornish cove, and sails it to Italy, straight into a chaotic world of post-war rackets and smuggling. 

          David Cunningham turned the wreck of an old landing craft into a vessel which would make any skipper proud. Then came the letter that turned his trading plans upside-down. "Find out what has happened to Monique, please, " and the faded image with it seemed to leave him no alternative. The letter took him to the Camorra, to pay the bloody ransom for a life.