Frost is assigned a new, West Indian detective constable, Clive Tanner; transferred in to help him investigate a string of commercial burglaries, which leads him to a black family on the local Eastdean estate, that he calls ""the crime academy"", while feeling guilt over the death of one of his informants. Will the arrest of the apparent culprit lead to accusations of police racism?

Frost's Saturday afternoon is disrupted by the discovery of a man's body floating in the river, and it turns out that he is not who he claimed to be. Events become more intriguing when the star player of a local soccer team collapses during a press conference, following an incident on the pitch in which he received head injuries.