Following his previous involvement with a branch of Murderer's Anonymous, which ended with him dead at the foot of a cliff and his brain stored in a jar, Barney Thomson's future seemed bleak. However, for no reason that he can get to the bottom of, suddenly he is back, plucked from the grave to be the personal barber to the First Minister of the Scottish Executive. Unexpectedly thrown into the world of political intrigue and scandal, Barney's life is at least given some consistency when a serial killer begins to pick off members of the cabinet in a series of brutal, but popular murders.