Glasgow,1932, is a city in the grip of dance-fever. Public ballrooms and backstreet dancehalls are thronged every night and competition for professional titles is fierce. Even after the sudden death of one of last year's hopefuls there are plenty willing to take his place, and few who stop to wonder why he died. In the melting pot of the Locarno Ballroom in Sauchiehall Street, a debutante rubs shoulders with denizens of Glasgow's meanest streets, her respectable fiance oblivious, her parents dismayed. When she starts receiving threats from a rival, they grow frantic enough to call on Dandy Gilver to save their precious daughter from harm. But as Dandy and her sidekick, Alec Osborne, begin to unravel the secrets of the dancehall, they soon discover that the rot goes much deeper than rivalry and there's more at stake than a silver cup. Despite the pretty frocks and dancing shoes, this apparently glittering world is a darker place than they've ever been before ...