While on assignment in Paris and Venice, an American journalist works desperately to expose communist espionage activities. Fenner burned Rosenfeld's message, reminding himself wryly that he was behaving in the very best tradition. This was a game not too difficult to learn, he thought. A game? A game in deadly earnest. A vacation in Venice that was grim business. A girl constantly beside him who wasn't his. How the hell had he walked into this upside-down...

Renwick is a former NATO intelligence officer who has started a new organization InterIntell. Like InterPol, they exist to be a clearinghouse for information, but instead of drugs they focus on terrorism. It doesn't follow the normal conventions of a MacInnes novel. It is more procedural than most, because Renwick is a professional rather than her usual "inspired amateur".

Chuck Kelso is an idealist. When he steals a top-secret NATO memorandum, he only intends to leak it to the press; but it is soon in the hands of a Russian agent, a man who has spent nine years quietly working himself into the fabric of Washington society. Within hours it has reached the KGB, and the CIA's top man in Moscow has had his cover blown. For British agent Tony Lawton, hunting down the Russian operative-the 'agent in place'-is a welcome challenge....