When the Branch Manager of Winston & Company's southeastern Pennsylvania office is killed in a freak accident, Cody Sargent is transferred from the New York office to replace him. Cody is reluctant to leave the excitement of Wall Street, but recognizes his new assignment is an opportunity to gain the management experience that will eventually bring him back to Manhattan with a higher position in the financial industry The job in Pennsylvania begins promisingly enough, but Cody soon realizes little is what he's been led to believe it is. There is wide suspicion that the previous manager's death may not have been an accident. The dead manager's sister-in-law, Patsy Hamilton, is vehement that he was murdered. When Cody calls on the manager's widow to pay his respects, Patsy accosts him and demands to know what he and his company are going to do about her brother-in-law's murder. Cody learns the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating retirement assets Winston & Co. holds for Mexican immigrants working at the local mushroom farms. These assets, in excess of a hundred million dollars, were under investigation by the former manager when he had his fatal accident. Winston & Co.'s New York office instructs Cody to continue this investigation. When Buck Camilla, the broker handling the Mexican workers' accounts is killed during a botched home invasion, Cody realizes Patsy Hamilton is probably right about her brother-in-law's accident being murder, and that now Cody himself may be a target for the killers.