It was impossible that the public could ever have missed seeing the giant alien spaceship. But somehow, everyone did.

The US and USSR both want to know how the UK covered the incident up. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart would quite like to know who actually did cover it up. Old allies from both sides of the Iron Curtain are chasing the answer – but each with their own agenda. Everyone wants the power to make inconvenient secrets disappear.

The search leads Lethbridge-Stewart to the single most normal man on the Isle of Man, and what happens to the world around him when he dies. Lethbridge-Stewart faces death by coincidence, as probability gets turned upside-down.

And as the attacks get closer and closer to home, so does the political fallout. His career, his dream of uniting the worlds’ nations against alien threats, even his family could pay the ultimate price.