Against the background of Apartheid in 1960's Cape Town, wealthy socialite, Georgina van Wyk, is about to become one of the most powerful women in the land. Following the murder of her husband Hendrik, she will, on attaining her twenty-first birthday, inherit Capital Law, the largest corporate attorneys in South Africa. Beautiful and accomplished, great wealth and privilege has made her arrogant and condescending. So when she discovers a very senior police officer is obsessed with her and suspecting he was involved in the murder of her husband, Georgie cynically encourages the relationship, turning his infatuation to her advantage. On behalf of a client, she agrees to look into the unexplained cancellation of an order for South African wines. Returning to London, Georgie is re-united with the English photographer, with whom she had an affair within days of her husband's death. But the circumstances are more serious than she expected. Learning that Loretta Harvey, the granddaughter of millionaire South African hotelier, Sir Martyn Saunders has been kidnapped, they set out to find her, but all is not as it appears. Georgina suspects that Operation Slapelose, a shadowy department of the South African police are involved. There follows a dramatic race to Amiens in France, where, assisted by her lover, Bob Simmons and swashbuckling, Jan Kruger, the pilot of her private jet, they break into the offices of the African National Congress. Finding evidence of Loretta's location, they are about to set off on a rescue mission, only to be detained by the British South Africa Police, who are in pursuit of Hendrik's murderer. Georgie has to escape both police and assassins to rescue the girl from a derelict farmhouse in Picardy.