Claire Sessarego travels from her home in Hereford to Antwerp to collect the remains of her now deceased father, and to discover who he really was and how he died. As a mercenary or “gun for hire” involved in secretive “black ops” across the world, Philip had taught the Taliban how to fight the Russians in the 1980s, double-crossed soldiers in the Balkans by faking his own death in the 1990s, and wrote a book about his time in the SAS in 2001 (later revealed to be lies and fantasy). Uncovering the murky truth about her father, Claire’s journey allows her to finally lay his memory to rest - but as what? An heroic larger-than-life soldier of fortune or simply a man who abandoned her and his family to live out his fantasy?