The far north coast of Scotland. Spring 1745. It begins with a murder. But is it a murder when someone is forced to kill his brother, so that he might save his own life? The guilty man is a nobody, a poor fisherman. The person who arrogantly and unthinkingly makes him commit this terrible act, simply to see how he behaved, is the richest man in Scotland, the Earl of Dunbeath. Dunbeath invents his game of life the Prisoner s Dilemma. He invites his old friend, David Hume, to Caithness to play the new game with him. But into their planned discussions blow two survivors from a shipwreck - the beautiful and brilliant Sophie Kant and the calm, charismatic captain, Alexis Zweig. What follows is a claustrophobic and fast-moving game of cat and mouse, as the characters drive relentlessly towards their destinies in life and death, love and betrayal and the passion they each have to achieve their different ambitions. Under the game-playing, the deceits and feints, the science and the philosophy, is a simple tale of three utterly determined and ruthless men struggling to the death to succeed in the race for an extraordinary woman. Which of them will win? How? And why?