Lucifer, a paranoid young man, believes that he is Satan and has a remarkable psychic ability to predict death by natural causes. Lucifer's ability is used by Seff's gang to extract ransom from their rich victims. Seff selects the victims and warns them of their impending death; any who do not pay the ransom seemingly dies from natural causes, helped on their way by Seff's executioner, Jack Wish. By what means are the victims being killed? How is the ransom money being collected without trace from under the sea? Modesty's friend, Steve Collier, the renowned psychic researcher, is kidnapped to help Seff but he accidentally blows Modesty's cover as she investigates this mystery. Taken prisoner, Modesty and her faithful lieutenant, Willie Garvin, must escape Seff's island stronghold in the third instalment of Peter O'Donnell's best-selling Modesty Blaise series.