For Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner, the Thursday night football game at the local gym has long been an unbroken ritual. With each match the players are a little older, a little slower, but as fiercely competitive as a gang of teenagers. Until the savagely mutilated body of a former player is found, and suddenly the Thursday Legends have more to worry about than aching backs and dodgy knees. Former Head of Special Branch Alec Smith made plenty of enemies during his long career - and there is no shortage of suspects. But as Skinner's investigation gathers pace, everything keeps pointing to the Legends themselves. Is someone targeting this disparate group of colleagues and friends in some bizarre scheme of retribution? Or is the murderer one of them? Either way, the hunt for the killer is going to come uncomfortably close to home...