Every August, barrister John Strickland leaves London for the annual holiday at his wife Clare`s family home in Norfolk. This year, on a lazy summer`s afternoon Strickland, reads something that changes his life for good. All that Strickland has accepted as the way things are, for good or bad, is turned on its head. In a few short months he turns from middle-class lawyer into socialist MP, from loving husband to adulterer and more. Until one of his more cruel mid-life fantasies is brought to life - and John Strickland finds that despite everything he is and always will be a married man.