Macduff Brooks works hard at being a decent fly fishing guide in Wyoming and Montana, plays the oboe marginally, drinks too much Gentlemen Jack, and struggles with relationships with women. But he hasn't been Macduff Brooks for very long and often he wants to return to his earlier existence as happily married law professor Maxwell Hunt in Florida. It is not to be for his wife has died in a boating accident on the Snake River in Wyoming, and a depressed Hunt, increasingly willing to accept "special work" for a federal agency, is nearly killed in Guatemala, but is announced as having died of a stroke, and placed in a federal protection program with a new identity and location. As Macduff Brooks, he moves between his new homes in Montana and Florida, but cannot escape his Guatemalan assailants who doubt that he died. A client is killed on his drift boat, and his cabin is rigged with bombs, not helping his new relationship with a New York investment-banker lady, who owns a ranch next to Brooks' Montana cabin.