Life is good for handyman Chip Hale until he begins working on a house where the owner died from carbon monoxide poisoning. He soon learns that there have been an above average number of similar deaths in the Reno area and as he investigates, life becomes more complicated. His youngest granddaughter is arrested after being expelled from school, the Handyman Inc. office is destroyed by fire, and one of his colleagues winds up murdered.

Chip's primary concern is for his seventeen-year-old granddaughter and keeping her from going to prison as criminal charges against her escalate from simple assault to first-degree murder. But as the clues to a possible murder conspiracy become more apparent and the police refuse to investigate, Chip and his coworkers once again have to break the law to bring the killers to justice.