1976. On return from the EEC, Nick Storey is working on excise duties. He comes across an export warehouse in Woolwich, which seems a little too perfect. Finding a suitable reason to check them out, he uncovers a large fraud, involving the diversion of duty-free exports to the home market. However, his investigation causes threats to himself, Rosemary and his family. But when the main suspect and his family are brutally murdered, Nick begins to suspect that something more important is going on. Following that trail leads to Rosemary and her daughters being menaced at gunpoint, the seizure of a dangerous package at Gatwick and a risky game of bluffing with the highly-placed criminals. Our friends in the south is the tenth book published in a series of detective stories mostly set in Customs & Excise by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.