Dr. Michael Neef, consultant in paediatric oncology at a large city hospital, is cautiously optimistic when he is given the go-ahead to carry out gene therapy trials on some of his terminally ill young patients. For the biotechnology company involved believes that it has come up with a treatment for malignant tumours, and the hospital administrators, reeling after a recent bout of bad publicity, see this as an opportunity to get some good press coverage for a change. But as the trials progress, the press - largely in the form of journalist, Eve Sayers - becomes more interested in the deaths of two young girls.Post-mortem examinations reveal the presence of an underlying cancer, so severe that only recent exposure to a powerful carcinogen can account for it. As more deaths follow and the city's Public Health Dept. fails to trace the source of the carcinogen, Neef, with the aid of Eve, set about trying to find the cause of this deadly - and seemingly infectious - disease.