Ex-journalist Dan Starkey is stuck in a grimy Belfast bedsit. His life is a disaster, and his only solace is the pub round the comer (and the last can in his hand). He needs to get out more (particularly since the sessions at Relate with his wife Patricia have been cancelled and she's hooked up with new man Clive). He really, really needs something to get his teeth into. Fellow ex-journalist Mark Corkery provides that something. Corkery, whose secret persona is The Horse Whisperer, an internet horse-racing gossip, wants him to investigate Geordie McClean, the man behind Irish American Racing. Simple enough for a man with Dan's experience, surely? But Trouble is Dan's middle name. And trouble is what he finds.