Harry Logan is a producer of modest but successful Hollywood movies. From Gabriella Dellacroce, an amorous Italian TV producer and long-time friend who has gone back to Italy for a year, Harry has 'inherited' Mike Roman, a retired government horticulturist, to take care of his garden.

One day in May, while cultivating the young Greek sweet peppers he had set out in Harry's Beverly Hills back yard vegetable patch, Mike Roman is brutally stabbed and left to die in the dirt – for no apparent reason. Who would want to kill an old gardener? There are few clues, but for Harry this is personal. Very personal.

Despite a new film starting production, Harry gets progressively deeper into solving the tangled mystery of Mike's murder and finds a trail of death extending to Turkey and Italy. It nearly costs Harry, his loving ex-wife Judy, and FBI agent John Quintero their lives.