As dawn breaks over Camden Town, north London, and the overnight blackout ends, a milkman finds a car ablaze in a builder’s yard a stone’s throw from the Regent’s Canal. The charred body of the driver is still at the wheel. The victim is Les Latham, a commercial traveller for the Barings confectionery company – he liked to be known as Lucky Les, but it seems his luck has finally run out.

Sifting through the dead man’s belongings, Detective Inspector John Jago discovers a mysterious photograph and some suspicious-looking petrol ration books that set him off on a murky trail of deceit, corruption and murder.