The brash and resourceful private investigator Holland Taylor takes on an unpromising embezzlement case: an elderly woman has been cheated out of her life savings. But when Taylor tracks down the unscrupulous businessman who handled her investments, he finds that Mrs. Gustafson's financial ruin is only one strand in a spider's web of fraud and intrigue. Millions of dollars are at stake, as well as the reputations of the most powerful people in the Twin Cities.

With the help of his elegant attorney lady love and an eccentric computer-genius friend, Taylor starts probing under cover into Field's activities. The game quickly becomes serious when Field is found shot to death and Taylor is suspected of the crime. As a hired killer pursues him, Taylor races to put the last pieces of the puzzle together, find the money, and catch the people who are willing to do anything to stop him.