A walled up body over a hundred years old connects a fortune in lost gold to a corrupt, but powerful Brighton family...
The grisly find, followed by the murder of ex-girlfriend, Eve Cozens, becomes a catalyst for wealthy local man, John Gunn.
Gunn discovers that the body, tagged 126, is not that of a child, but a young adult suffering from dwarfism. Yet it is the newly minted Confederate Double Eagle, found with 126, that sets him on the trail of the greatest shipwreck mystery of the Civil War era and the disappearance of not only half a billion pounds worth of gold, but also a cache of fabulous jewellery donated by the wives of Confederate supporters of the time.
A numismatist – or coin collector – Gunn finds himself irresistibly drawn into the murky world of the Venables, a prominent Brighton family with strong criminal connections and, in the process, uncovers a macabre family secret steeped in violence, sadism and treachery.