Plot summary

Life for Richard Blaney has taken a downward turn since his days as a commended R.A.F. squadron leader. After ten years, his marriage to Brenda Blaney ended, she, in the intervening two years, who went on to become a successful business owner of her own matrimonial service. They have, however, remained on good, albeit distant terms despite the divorce petition, the abuse listed within, which was made-up and agreed to, on both sides, to expedite the divorce. He lives from paycheck to paycheck, those which end when he is fired, somewhat unfairly, from his job as a barman at a Covent Garden pub. With that job goes his shelter, as the job came with a room above the pub. A small measure of what can go wrong will go wrong when he doesn't even have enough money to make a sure thing bet on a twenty to one horse, that lead, which came in, provided to him by his friend from the pub, Covent Garden produce wholesaler Bob Rusk. The only seemingly bright spot in his current life is the mutual devotion between him and Babs Milligan, a barmaid at the pub. These events have made him an angry man, manifested by a temper which he is no longer ashamed to display in public. When he's already down, his life gets arguably as worse as it can when evidence arises pointing him to being a serial murderer, the so-called "Necktie Murders", which are characterized by the young female victims being raped before they are strangled to death by a necktie, which the murderer leaves tied around the victim. The lead investigator for New Scotland Yard is Chief Inspector Oxford, who has no other suspects before Richard comes to his attention following the discovery of the latest victim. Richard, who knows the police are after him, needs to elude them. He has to decide who to trust, him making a mistake in this realm which could make his situation worse, or worse yet, get him killed at the hands of the true murderer.—Huggo