Lagos 1977, the eve of FESTAC, Nigeria's great celebration of African culture and arts. The body of a young man, Marcus Diello, is found. He has been brutally murdered. Cyril, a police inspector dealing with his first murder case in the capital since arriving from Benin, faces pressures from his bosses who want the murder swept under the carpet - and from Marcus's friends and colleagues who demand explanations. Why was an innocent life taken? Was it a ritual murder or robbery? On the back of Lagos buses, it says: "God's judgement, no appeal - no telephone to heaven." With help from Marcus's three friends and a young Englishman with his own secrets, Cyril is caught up in a world of power politics, gun-running, antiquities smuggling and African nationalism as he attempts to discover why an innocent man bled to death on a Lagos pavement in the early hours of the morning.