1993. Concerns about former Soviet bloc weapons falling into the wrong hands leads to Nick Storey becoming a member of a Cabinet Office committee and a special committee of the World Customs Organisation (WCO).
Having seized harmless ex-Soviet weaponry at Felixstowe, Nick's belief that such materials would be imported into the UK is shaken. Claims made by his Russian opposite number about UK firms engaged in this trade lead to further, more serious seizures.
But at a WCO meeting in Berlin, the Russian and his wife seek a private meeting with Nick and Rosemary, but are killed on the way there. Back-ullaging from the murder, Nick is able to identify who is running the smuggling operation, but what is being smuggled takes everyone's breath away.
"End of the road" is the twenty-third book in a series of detective stories set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner