Tell them, the Night Heron is hunting ... A lone man, Peanut, escapes a labour camp in the dead of night, fleeing across the winter desert of north-west China. Two decades earlier, he was a spy for the British. Now Peanut finds Beijing transformed and crawling with danger - he must quickly disappear on its surveillance-blanketed streets or face death. Desperate and ruthless, Peanut reaches out to his one-time MI6 paymasters via journalist Philip Mangan, offering secrets in return for his life. Mangan is dragged into a deeper and deeper whirlpool of lies, as the secrets prove more valuable than he or Peanut could ever have known... and not only to the British.