Timothy Bright doesn't exactly live up to his name. Brought up to regard copious flows of money as his birthright, he can't understand why the funds have been cut off, not why friends he recruited as Lloyd's Names no longer want to talk to him. When gambling fails, Timothy turns to embezzlement, but it's the lesser of fence of helping himself to some strangely aromatic tobacco that propels him up the motorway ... and into bed with the Chief Constable's wife, in the far-northern country of Twixt and Tween.

The Chief Constable has just survived charges of bribery and perjury, and is not too concerned that his efforts to dispose of Timothy involve false imprisonment, breaking and entering, and a spot of GBH. It is when the Chief tries to frame his old adversary, the upright Miss Midden, that things begin to go seriously wrong - and his underhand ploy opens up the way to spectacular mayhem.