A vicious crime in the gay Castro District of San Francisco, unsolved by the SFPD, results in the hiring of Mercy Investigations to find the perpetrator. At the same time, US Senator Ruth Fineline is trying to help her grand-niece get out of an abusive and miserable marriage without creating a public spectacle. This second Mercy Investigations novel brings back the agency's crew of four - Steady Ed Steadman, Mercy Torcher, Jack Nowan, and young Reggie Jackson - in a rolling, startling novel of action and intrigue, another outing that contains wit and intelligence as well as the serious process and progress necessary to a thriller.