After acting on poor intelligence, officer Paul Tallis shoots a suspected terrorist in a Birmingham shopping centre. With his career over, Tallis leaves the elite firearms unit and is utterly disillusioned. A year later, Tallis is approached by a shadowy figure working for MI5. The offer is simple - unearth four illegal immigrants accidentally released from prison and hand them over to the authorities. The plan runs like clockwork, until Tallis makes an ugly discovery.
Severity reflects intensity, not value — “central theme” means a warning is a core part of the book, not that the book is bad.