Sleuth Andrew Laird is a Scots marine claims adjuster for a London firm and there's quite a bit of introductory brow-beetling over just why a doodad from the engine of an oil-part carrying ship was excised from a main watchacallit and why two essential repair parts never arrived. Several killings, a kidnapping and much police talk later, it's all uncoiled. Takes place in and off Majorca and it's especially for patient machine-and-marine-minded males.