The ""clutch"" is the biggest police conference in history and these ""Crime Haters"" are disrupted when one member is shot and a second, Randy Patton, barely escapes murder. Then Randy's daughter is kidnapped with notes demanding that he give himself up to the assassins. Inspector Dawlish has to find out what Patton (who has a photographic memory) has forgotten to remember. Don't forget to remember that Gordon Ashe is John Creasey whose plots are, indeed, thickening.