When Anna Craig's lover disappears, she hires hard nosed private eye Matt Burdock to locate the dork. Burdock finds the corpse with a cord wrapped around its neck. The ensuing investigation draws Burdock and Craig into an international intrigue that takes them from the streets of Toronto to the northern wilderness and forces each to consider whether the greater threat is the other or the killer. Abetting Burdock are Street Pete who "would have been a strapping handsome man if he was able to care for himself," his ex-navy buddies Ptomaine Tony "whose bar food is the stuff city health inspectors are paid to eradicate" and Big Steve who "was with Tony and me when we cleared the bikers out of the bar in Halifax," his high school chum Broker Bob who "was an advocate of conspicuous consumption, he bought a sixty foot cruiser but he was afraid of water so he preferred to cruise the bar," and first wife Eleanor who "only showed up at the church to see if I would be there." All do not survive.