London private eye Ron Hogget finds things for people, though the finding sometimes involves fearful activities. Ron is often fearful - he's that sort of person - but he usually gets the job done. And he has Dave Baxter, a friend and minder who drives a mini-cab, reads philosophy, who knows everything about guns and self-defence and nothing about fear. In Dying Day, Hogget is hired to find nothing smaller than an airplane, and one that's been missing for thirty years. It is ex-RAF officer Tony Palliser, filthy rich from a business that began with airplanes - Dakotas - participating in the Berlin airlift in 1948, who calls on Hogget's services. But why, after all these years? Palliser's reasons are thin, but his money is good so Ron takes on the job only to find he's not alone on the hunt and that the real reason behind finding the aircraft must be quite impressive for all the deaths being arranged on its behalf. Including, very likely, his own...