Even in death, Cassidy is larger than life. Charles Parnell Cassidy is a powerful politician. He's a backroom fixer: generous, but also greedy and cunning. Martin Gregory is his disenchanted protégé who, having married Cassidy's daughter and become a success on his own terms, scorns his father-in-law. When the terminally ill Cassidy arrives in London to die, he makes Gregory the executor of his will and sets a complex trap by offering him the keys to a vast empire of wealth and corruption spanning Australia and Southeast Asia. With Cassidy's evil influence ever-present, Gregory tries to unravel the old man's complicated obligations and debts, while struggling to ensure the security of his family.