The following day, Mrs McKay is kidnapped. The kidnappers demand £1 million, but Mr McKay has nothing like that kind of money. A Desperate Business is the story of a case that gripped the nation, the first kidnap and ransom ever to occur in Britain. It is also a story of ingenious detection, of tragedy, and of a very different Britain, hostile to immigration, on the cusp of the Murdoch takeover of its cultural and political identity, with a desperately ill-equipped police force having to deal with a new crime, and a new type of newspaper.