Vince Bocca, a Boston restaurateur and formerly a part-time white collar crime sleuth, is thrown back into the game when a bank president asks him to find the more than two million dollars a senior bank employee, Mark Overdale, embezzled. Overdale confessed that he spent the money gambling, but the banker is convinced Overdale is not a gambler and that he has hidden the money so he can enjoy it when he is released from prison. Setting out to unearth the missing money, clues take Bocca from the penitentiary where Overdale is doing time to the casinos of Atlantic City and a New York auction house. Working with Overall's neurotic wife, Bocca suspects the bank's money was used to buy two original paintings by Paul Gauguin from a private collector. However, before Bocca can piece it all together, someone tries to kill the art dealer handling the transaction. As the police look for the would-be killer, Bocca uncovers Overall's accomplice. But is she also working for someone else?