Brighton, 1964. Organised crime has moved into this sleepy English seaside town. Ambitious young gangster Pinkie Brown is determined to stop other gangs taking over his patch, but when he kills a rival, vital evidence falls into the innocent hands of a young impressionable waitress, Rose.
Pinkie seduces Rose to stop her talking but her employer Ida is suspicious of their relationship. A year before the abolition of the death penalty, can Pinkie trust Rose not to betray him and can Rose trust Pinkie not to make her his next victim?
